


Metronome

by Valmasy



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, BDSM, Bondage, Car Accidents, Dream Manipulation, Dream Sex, Identity Porn, M/M, Oral Sex, Sex Magic, Sounding, Villain Tony Stark, steve is semi-adjusted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 01:39:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmasy/pseuds/Valmasy
Summary: In a world where the United States was brought to heel and divided into zones, Iron Man struggles against the good, the bad, and the devastatingly handsome; all in a bid to get to the man that killed his parents.A story of peace, war, and love - not necessarily in that order. In which Tony Stark runs for office, but not really. In which Steve Rogers is innocent, but not really. In which Iron Man hates Captain America with a passion, but not really.And hey, there's always Taco Tuesday.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChibiSquirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/gifts).



> I want to thank Chibisquirt for her amazing patience waiting for this. It's not finished, but it's almost there, and I want to thank everyone who's helped me get to this point. You're amazing and wonderful, and I love you. 
> 
> But a big shout out to the wonderfully-talented [Baneme](http://baneme-art.tumblr.com/), who made the gorgeous cover art for this story.

_I can do anything with no permission_  
_I have it all under my command_  
_Because I can guide a missile by satellite_  
_And I can hit a target through a telescope_  
_And I can end the planet in a holocaust..._  
_I can ride my bike with no handlebars._ \- "Handlebars" by Flobots

~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~

Tony Stark learned his first worldly lessons from the inside of a cereal box. First, anything or anyone can be used as a weapon.

 _”Stand_ down, _Iron Man!”_

Secondly, or maybe one-b as an addendum to the first, never trust anyone.

_“Tony, if that was true, then I need you to open this.”_

Melissa smiled, a small and fond expression she always reserved specifically for Tony and settled him at the breakfast table by the windowed end of the kitchen. The sun gleamed young and bright across the polished oak, skipping over the glassware and casting Tony's fingers in rainbowed light. He wiggled his fingers to spill the light onto Melissa's pristine apron.

There was a soft chuckle and a ruffle of Tony's hair before she sat his food in front of him. Beneath the table, Tony kicked his leg, but only slightly, because he was six in two days, and six-year-olds were meant to be above that sort of childish behavior. But he delighted in the colors of the light matching his Fruity Pebbles, an indulgence his mother let him have.

“Make sure you eat it all up, Master Anthony,” Melissa said smartly, straightening his hair from where she'd messed it. “You have a busy day ahead of you.”

“Yes, Missy,” Tony replied, taking the first bite of his cereal. Melissa walked away, the tips of her fingers brushing his ear. 

Tony watched a hummingbird flit about the red-colored feeder hanging outside the largest window, digging further into his bowl. He hummed as he chewed, foot swinging gently. Until it began to slow. He looked down at his cereal, the soggy, distorted colors swirling around his milk. His stomach clenched, and he dropped his spoon into the bowl.

“Missy?” Tony called out, unsure. His cereal no longer tasted right, not like the artificial sweeteners his palate enjoyed, but bitter and concentrated. His stomach clenched again. He struggled to push back from the table as his skin became damp. 

“Missy!” He called again, stumbling out of his chair and towards the counter. His throat burned. “Mis-” He doubled over and vomited. His stomach was screaming, throat on fire, body shaking. Why wasn't Melissa coming to help? He slumped to the floor, vomiting again, the murky colors of his cereal mixing with the bright red of his blood. His vision blurred, the image of his fingers slipping in the mess seared into his brain.

“It's okay, Master Anthony,” he heard Melissa whisper. Or maybe she spoke normally, but his consciousness slipped from him as he felt cool fingers at his brow. “It’ll be over soon.”

Never trust anyone, even those with a soft smile and kind, blue eyes.

~~

So when, thirty years later (okay, thirty-three, but who was counting to his face?), Captain Steven Rogers shook his hand firmly, coupled with a shy smile and blue eyes, Tony pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose and smirked.

"How did the military manage to churn you out so 'boy-next-door', Captain Rogers?" Tony asked, drawing his hand back to pull his phone from his pocket when it chimed.

Instead of being offended or, worse, a stammering mess, Captain Rogers laughed and flashed his teeth, even and white. Perfect. Tony bit the inside of his cheek, the buccal cavity bumpy and warped from decades of him holding back his words.

He calculated how hard he'd have to hit the Captain to maintain permanent damage to the cuspids. It was a pleasant distraction from the warmth in the guy's greeting. He wasn't sure if Captain Rogers was genuinely interested, or if he was naturally charming. He’d bet the latter.

Regardless, Tony didn't sleep with the enemy. Or blondes, for that matter. Perhaps, he should make a note to start with the blondes on his omittance list. If the Captain had been brunette, for instance…

“-innocent as I seem, Mr. Stark, and please, call me Steve. We'll be working closely together from what I hear.”

Oh, yes. If the Captain had been brunette, Tony would have had him spread out on the table by now. He wondered idly at the sounds Rogers’ baritone could produce while he replayed his answer.

“Generally, SHIELD deals with my R&D Department; this was just a courtesy call.” Tony waited a beat for the inevitable protest, but when none actually came, he tipped his head to the side a bit. A lock of his hair fell across his brow. He watched Rogers’ gaze track the movement. “But I'm sure I could make an exception to give you the initial tour of your new inventory, Captain.”

He wouldn't give ground to ‘Steve’. That was a reward; one which the Captain hadn't earned yet. 

“Stark, I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Director Fury butted in, and Tony watched Rogers’ smile flicker. _Interesting._ He shoved his phone back into his pocket and shrugged. 

“I’m here with spare time. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t let him monopolize that time with kindergarten questions.”  
“Oh, well geez,” Rogers laughed softly, reaching back to rub the back of his neck, “I certainly hope I can come up with better questions than that.”

Tony offered up a grin, touching a hand to his own chest in mock-offense. “What? You have something against spelling ‘cat’? I’ll have you know that I was the smartest speller Ms. Lorenzo had ever seen in her years at Christ Episcopal.”

“Our Lady of Loreto,” Rogers replied, his grin matching Tony’s then turning a bit sly. “District Champion four years in a row.”

Tony laughed; he couldn’t help it, and it rankled him a little, but he didn’t let that emotion through. “Catholic boy, huh? I should’ve known. You’ve got a bit of that caged wildness about you.”

Fury muttered about the disbelief in his life as he turned away to preserve his sanity. “You’ve got two hours, Mr. Stark, and then I’ll have to _insist_ Captain Rogers let you get back to work.”

“Of course, Director Fury,” Rogers agreed, “Two hours is more than enough time to get into trouble and get him home in one piece.”

Tony bit hard into his cheek again. It was either his imagination or Fury’s coat swished particularly angrily as he stalked down the hall and around the corner, muttering as he went. He turned back to the Captain, whose expression had gone narrow and thoughtful while Tony hadn’t been looking. It cleared almost instantly, but a second or two too slow. 

“Well, Captain,” Tony prompted, far too amused than he liked to admit, “shall we?”

It turned out, almost three hours later, that Captain Rogers was far more intelligent than anyone had been letting on. It was a gratifying discovery when Rogers asked all the right questions, never once falling behind or getting lost in Tony’s answers. He was truly interested in everything Tony was teaching him. It was refreshing, illuminating.

It was dangerous. 

As Tony settled behind the wheel of his Saleen, he traded his current sunglasses for another set. Those were tinted normally, and as he started the car, a blue HUD coalesced in front of his gaze. The car pulled away and left the garage, engine a low-set, promising growl as he peeled out into traffic.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Jarvis greeted Tony.

“What’s the word, J?” Tony asked, reaching into the passenger seat to open up the small, Burberry case that held two titanium bracelets. He clipped each one onto his wrists, feeling the connection to his suit thrum into life, and watched data scroll past his eyes. 

“Whoa, wait, run that back. Two reports.” 

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis replied. The data replayed, displaying the National Nuclear Security Administration’s current operational status. The whole point of the Megaports Initiative was to work with their partner countries to systematically enhance their detection capabilities for nuclear and radioactive materials. If the NNSA had put out an alert…

“When did the Megaports trigger?”

“Doctor Doom was alerted sixty-four minutes ago. He has since initiated airspace lockdown and has sent exactly three messages in the order of merely informing you of the incident, requesting your presence, and, finally, demanding your presence no later than your first opportunity. As you were with Captain Rogers in SHIELD, the messages were banked.”

“Damn,” Tony muttered, and then, “I hate flying to Latveria. He’s so…” He snapped his fingers, trying to choose a specific word.

“Egotistical. Self-centered. Narcissistic. Puffed up.”

“Oo, I like that last one. Let’s use ‘puffed up’ for today.” Tony sighed, and pushed both hands up under his glasses to rub his eyes. “Alright, fine. Let Victor know I’m on my way.”

“Of course, sir. I have drawn up the usual flight plan. There are three routes to be avoided this afternoon, and their detours have now been programmed into the Variant. The package has been cordoned off as per proper protocol and is ready for pickup at Terminal B, Gate 49.”

“Thanks, J. Oh… On the topic of other topics, talk to me about Captain Steve Rogers.”

“Captain Steven Rogers, born 19-”

“Skip the origin story. I want present day,” Tony interrupted, settling his hands on the wheel and taking control of the car. He pushed the sleek vehicle faster through the D.C. traffic, heading for Dulles Airport (IAD). 

“Captain Rogers was successfully recovered from a minor expedition involving harp seals three months ago. In an interesting side note, your father’s last expedition to find the Captain ended approximately 150 leagues out from the Captain’s location.” 

“Poor bastard,” Tony muttered. Case files spread out across the HUD for Tony to poke through. 

“Using SI-funded research materials,” Jarvis continued, “mixtures resembling and/or related to combinations of squid brine and antifreeze solutions were successfully engineered to revive Captain Rogers, effectively ‘defrosting’ him, as the news stations dubbed it.”

“And, of course, the government immediately re-enlisted him,” Tony said with a resigned sigh. He navigated through the fast lane around a van swaying dangerously out of its lane.

“Naturally, but files indicate that Captain Rogers requested the re-enlistment. Notations suggest that SHIELD psychiatrists believe that he thinks being out in the field will help him adjust more quickly. One note reads: ‘Captain Rogers dislikes being idle. It leaves him too much time to think and focus on his loss. It’s possible that Captain Rogers could be a liability. Against Director Fury’s recommendation, Captain Rogers is being approved for active duty, per Councilman Pierce’s direct approval. Director Fury concedes as long as Captain Rogers reports for his weekly therapy, he will remain on active duty. He will be monitored closely.’”

Tony breathed out heavily through his nose, leaning his cheek on his fist as he braced his elbow on the door. “Fury’s concerned he might be too loose in the field.” 

“Captain Rogers’ field evaluations indicate that it is a possibility.”

“He’ll be fine,” Tony replied as he swept away the data, “Give him a couple missions with a Strike team, and he’ll find his stride again. They just gotta stop harping on him. I’m sure they’re harping on him.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis replied agreeably. An orange light began to blink on Tony’s dashboard, and he groaned out loud. 

“That’s my cue, J. Take the car home?” he asked as the car pulled off the next exit. As it rounded the curve, Tony was already armored up and jetting off through the opening roof in the direction of the airport. The car continued on, the roof reclosing, and directing itself towards home. 

“Sir, radiation levels have increased, and the airport is beginning to report electrical glitches. I have activated their fire alarms and evacuation has begun.”

“Shit,” Tony groaned. “I told him thorium was too dangerous, but does anyone listen to me? Noooo.”

“I do, sir,” Jarvis replied. 

“Aww, thanks, buddy. How much time do we have?” In the distance, Tony could make out the ATC tower taking shape. He set his jaw and kicked his repulsors faster. 

“At the current levels, I calculate approximately five minutes before the containers fully erode.”

“Only five?!” Tony’s damaged heart skipped more beats than what was safe, and the rest of his flight was filled with a stream of curses. The black and red of his armor stood out in his reflection from the airport’s windows as he banked around a side and headed straight for Gate 49. 

“J, we have to get this place evacuated faster!” Tony wasted no time in finding the door. He burst through the siding, hitting the concrete floor of the warehouse at a run as the innocuous gray shipping crates came into view, sitting exactly as protocol dictated. 

“The evacuation has caused panic, but the civilians are complying with personnel. There are two planes still connected for boarding in Terminal B. Sir, the core material has eroded at too rapid a pace. Meltdown imminent. You must retreat to a safer distance.”

Tony swore viciously and shot off towards the closest connected plane. Panels all along his suit opened and flared, sending out hundreds of projectiles that expanded and thrummed into life. They slammed along the side of the plane as Tony severed the jet bridge and then, all together, they began to push the plane towards the other. 

Tony grunted through the strain, knowing that his actions were in vain when Jarvis began to tick down the final seconds. As one, he and the projectiles turned, and he slammed his palms together. The suit clanked loudly.

“J, I need that web, stretched as high and wide as we can get it!”

“Sir, that operation is untes-”

“Now, J!”

“Understood, sir.”

Blue netting formed from the repulsors, shooting out in all directions to connect together and create a barrier between the airport and the two planes behind Tony. The wall barely reached the roof of the airport when the crates exploded. Instantly, the Terminal disintegrated into debris of glass and shrapnel. It slammed into Tony’s shielding like heat-seeking missiles, slicing through in places despite Tony’s best efforts to reinforce the barrier. A few of the repulsors flickered out and fell to the ground, leaving gaps in Tony’s defense. 

Two smaller explosions brought the rest of the Terminal down to rubble and more of Tony’s repulsors powered down, dropping out of the air. Tony followed them down, suit standing steadily as he shook violently inside it. 

“Sir, the thorium has been completely consumed. Radiation levels are still peaked, and any civilian still alive will need to be quarantined and treated immediately for poisoning. I estimate the loss of life to be in the low hundreds despite their best evacuation efforts. The remaining passengers aboard the planes have survived with minor injuries, but will also need to be quarantined.”

As Jarvis finished his recital, the din of sirens grew to an overwhelming volume. Sending out a pulse of energy on either side of himself, Tony destroyed the repulsors he’d burnt out with the webbing and then turned towards the police as an officer started demands through a bullhorn.

“Stand down, Iron Man! If you do not comply, we will detain you under force!”

“Oh man, this is embarrassing! I think I left my bomb in baggage claims,” Iron Man crooned, metallic, unfeeling, “but we’re all friends, right? What’s a little fire here or collapsed building there?”

“Sir, all incoming responders have now been notified about the radiation levels. The first responders here now will also be quarantined. Your suit can withstand another ten minutes, approximately. SHIELD incoming.”

“Ready the course for Latveria,” Tony muttered as Captain America dropped to the ground from the jet hovering safely above the crime scene. He guessed he’d be acting the part a little longer.

“You heard the authorities, Iron Man. Stand down and surrender quietly,” the Captain called across the distance where he stood between Iron Man and the police. 

“Did they finally let you out to play, Capsicle?” Iron Man taunted as Tony let the facade continue. “All for little ol’ me? I’m touched, but I’m on a bit of schedule here, so if you don’t mind....”

Captain America’s expression visibly twisted beneath his cowl, a brief spark of confusion clear in the slackness of his jaw before he grit his teeth. 

“Villains like you make me sick,” he spat. “What was your objective here? What could you possibly want to not even care about the innocent people -the _children!_ \- you’ve slaughtered here today?”

As Tony, he felt his stomach roll at the thought, but as Iron Man, he stood firm and unyielding to the guilt. After all, Iron Man was supposed to be the bad guy.

“If I went and did a crazy thing like cared, then I’d never get anything done. That’s what you heroes are for, isn’t it?” Iron Man drew a hand up to examine the fingers of his gauntlets, feigning nonchalance.

The Captain’s entire posture changed, and Tony braced himself with a sigh just as the shield left the Captain’s hand. He projected the bank shot before the shield connected against the fallen beam, and kicked off the ground with a steady jet from his boots. 

The tsk through the faceplate might not have been completely audible to anyone else, but the Captain sure heard it. He was already propelling himself forward as Tony lifted a little further in the air. 

“Unfortunately, I think I’ve lost my bag now, so my business here is done.” 

The shield ricocheted back into the Captain’s hand with scary accuracy, and he jumped, twisting to fling the shield again. It hit almost perfectly, shattering the plate just before Tony’s right foot’s repulsor.

 

“It was a pleasure meeting you in person finally. I look forward to seeing you again, Captain America.” 

“Iron Man!” 

Another series of alerts pinged around Tony’s HUD as the Captain and the decimated airport disappeared from view. The pings grated on Tony’s nerves until he growled shortly. 

“Shut it all down and get Victor on the line,” he ordered. 

_“You are quite late, Iron Man,”_ Victor said by way of greeting, and Tony closed his eyes. 

“Just pull out the ten best bottles of whatever liquor you pretend you don’t have, and open up. I’ll be there soon.”

There was silence for a moment except for the subtle shift of fabric. 

_“Oh, my dear Anthony. Problems at pickup?”_ There was a dark tone of amusement curling under Victor’s words, and Tony bared his teeth at the man. 

“When people play with things they don’t understand, _that’s_ my problem,” Tony snarled. “That was two metric tons of thorium, fucking wasted!” 

_“Yes, so I’m seeing now. Such a spectacle; it drew out the big guns. Captain America, really? He’s quite the… living legend, isn’t he? Emphasis on living. He could be a problem for us.”_

Tony breathed out as slowly as possible. 

“He’s obviously not that big of a problem. After all, I’m still on my way.”

 _“This time,”_ Victor replied vaguely, _“Maybe try not to draw so much attention next time. You’ve been so discreet intercepting the other packages.”_

“A lot of people died today, Victor,” Tony pointed out with frustrated grunt. “Maybe we can focus on that?”

 _“I’ll be sure to light a few candles then. Honestly, if you’re going to play at being the bad guy, you’re going to have to accept the consequences of those actions. I can only guide you so much.”_ Victor paused, leaving Tony to blow out a breathy sigh. _“There is nothing you can do about it now, Anthony. The damage is done, and the shipment is destroyed. He’ll know for certain now that you’re targeting him specifically. He’ll be cautious for some time, I assume, which is fine, because I won’t be able to produce another sizable amount for at least two weeks. In the meantime, perhaps you should put in some minor acts of evil and -oh, I don’t know- spend some time out of the suit for a bit? I’m sure you could use the break.”_

“I really hate you sometimes,” Tony muttered, rolling his eyes as Victor’s laughter tumbled around his speakers. 

_“I’ll have some food prepared for you before you begin binging on my alcohol supply, Anthony. Do not keep me waiting.”_

The line went dead, and Tony wanted to hit his head against a wall, but he’d have to remember to do that later. 

“J,” he said tiredly, “compile everything from the incident and all reports following. I want to look at them later with a clear head.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis answered, and the rest of Tony’s flight was silent and uninterrupted. 

~~

“It’s clear from the data reports your AI sent of your little jaunt today that Pierce is on to you,” Victor commented, casual and unaffected. He stood at the fireplace, still in most of a suit; the jacket was gone and the vest was opened to court his sides, but the tie was still knotted perfectly and his sleeves were still buttoned at the wrists. The drink in his hand had ice still, but clearly smaller pieces, so he must have been nursing it. 

Not for the first time, Tony had to remind himself that, though Victor had stopped his terrorizing ways, his moral compass was still clearly lacking; especially when it didn’t concern his own citizens. It did mean, however, that something political could have happened while Tony was out unsuccessfully stopping the radiation bomb. 

Tony closed the drawing room door behind him with a sigh and then let the suit open up so he could step of it. It closed up immediately after he cleared it, stepping back once to plant itself like a statue in the corner, or a sentinel set to guard. The black panels seemed to blend into the shadows and the dark wood of the drawing room walls. 

“I haven’t look at them yet,” Tony admitted, walking stiffly over to the closest part of the wet bar. He reached over the countertop to grab a larger tumbler then kept walking to move around to where Victor had left a bottle of Glennfiddich. He felt Victor turn to watch him. 

“You’re bleeding,” Victor pointed out, ice clinking against his glass. “You should probably get that looked at before you stain my floors.”

Tony poured the scotch into his glass until it just kissed the rim. “Don’t judge me,” he muttered to Victor, to anyone really, and bent a little to slurp the whiskey away from the top of glass. Successfully stopping any risk of spillage that way, he picked up his drink and turned around.

Victor, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as successful in hiding his perturbation at Tony’s manners. “That was quite plebian of you, Anthony, but nothing short of what I’d expect after the… day you’ve had. May we please address the matter of your blood? More specifically, do I need to call for my physician?”

“Afraid of me dying on Latverian soil, Doom?” Tony smirked, saluting Victor with his drink before taking another healthy -or unhealthy- swallow. “Don’t worry; I’m made of stronger stuff than that. Debris just tore through the webbing. It’s not quite up to snuff yet.”

“Yet,” Victor said dryly. Neither of them crossed the room to each other, preferring to keep the leather, wingback chairs between them. “I suppose we should discuss the data then.”

“The degradation of the thorium’s chamber was accelerated due to external forces. According to the data, Jarvis pinpointed DNA not belonging to myself, Dr. Ross, or Dr. Banner. The genetic code has mutated due to radiation, though, so no concrete identifiers.”

“Yet,” Tony said, leaning back against the bar and rolling his head side to side to loosen up the tightness in his shoulders. “Jarvis will plow through the blockers soon enough. I’ve got him focused on that while Friday takes over D.C.”

“You trust her with D.C. already?” Victor stepped away from the fireplace then with a thoughtful hum, “Are you sure you don’t have a concussion? I believe the last I heard of that AI, you were railing against the injustice of creating such a contrary, useless program.”

“Hey, only I can call her useless,” Tony replied, only kind of sharply, “and yeah, she’s good. Cleaned up a few of her bugs and let Jarvis take her systems through diagnostics. He cleared her, so I trust them. Besides, she hasn’t had any issues with New York.”

Victor pursed his mouth a little before smiling sardonically. “But she’s nowhere near Malibu.”

“Oh my god, no! Are you crazy? Pep’s in Malibu. The only program I trust enough to cover Malibu is Jarvis.” Tony narrowed his eyes suddenly as Victor closed the distance between them, using his glass to point at Victor. “What are you doing? Why do you care where I stick my AIs?”

“As long as they don’t cross my borders without my knowledge, I _don’t_ care. I’m simply assessing your mental capacity, considering you’ve poured another large drink in the thirty seconds we’ve been discussing it.” 

Tony scowled. “I’m sorry, Mother, am I drinking too much of your fancypants liquor?” He took a long swallow of his drink pointedly. 

“What you _are_ doing is being acerbic and bratty,” Victor replied, setting his glass down on the bartop, “and clearly, you have no head for this tonight. Perhaps after you rest, we may speak more of this over breakfast.”

Tony, despite his obvious reluctance, let Victor take his glass and settled both elbows on the bartop as he regarded the other man. Victor looked back, hands dipping into his pockets, mildly unimpressed with Tony’s behavior.

“You were a lot more fun before this good guy, bad guy crap,” Tony mused, and Victor laughed softly. 

“Anthony, there’s always been the good guy, bad guy role between us, and until you came to try your hand at being good, you were a lot more fun too,” Victor replied, tilting his head. His hair stayed perfectly arranged, no spare strands to slide or slip over his brow. 

Tony snorted. “You came back to me, Doom. You wanted my company’s good name to help you facilitate good relations with the U.S., and you wanted my good name to prove you were going on the up-and-up. It just so happened that I needed your help too. Mutually beneficial arrangements abound,” he finished dryly.

“Oh,” Victor sighed, the sigh of a disappointed teacher to a student who just didn’t comprehend, “I came to your company for that reason, yes, but to you, Anthony? That wasn’t the only reason.”

“Fuck off, we’re not going down that route. You were fun once, but I was never stupid. You and I? There isn’t anything else. Just me helping keep you legitimate, and you helping me expose Pierce to the cruel, cruel world of justice.”

At Victor’s raised brows, Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay, that sounded better in my head.”  
“I’m quite sure,” Victor replied, shifting to stand in front of Tony and pluck at the hem of his shirt where most of the dark stain of blood had settled. Tony inhaled sharply as the shirt was drawn up, but said nothing. He watched the slope of Victor’s nose, the sweep of his lashes, and felt his lip curl. 

“You take an awful lot of chances for a villain,” Victor remarked, fingers prodding gently at the jagged wound where the debris had punctured the Variant. 

“Yeah, well some of us don’t like killing children,” Tony said, tone casual, dismissive, but his gaze was sharper than any word he would give when Victor looked back up at him. 

He searched Tony’s face, looking for something in Tony’s expression. Whether he found it or not, Tony didn’t know, but Victor did step closer, much closer, into Tony’s space. It trapped his hand between them, pressing a piercing pain into Tony’s side where his fingers were still twisted up in Tony’s shirt. 

Tony wouldn’t give Victor the satisfaction of an outward response, though the blood pounded around the wound. 

“Once upon a time, you didn’t care who you hurt along the way to your brand of justice,” Victor said, his words damning even as he spoke civilly, calmly. Tony’s lip curled again, hating the tone, as if Victor were talking about the goddamn weather of all things. His fingers twitched around the curve of the countertop behind him. 

He blinked, a slow close of his eyes that steadied him with the soft exhale of agitation. Victor was right, not that Tony would ever say those words out loud, but Tony could use a little relaxation. He’d see the data with a clearer head, and then he could get the fuck out of Latveria and maybe actually visit Pepper for once. When he opened them again, he regarded Victor almost boredly. Victor always did have a way with his tongue.

“Once upon a time, you were just a piss-poor diplomat. So, if you’re not going to let me drown my injuries in alcohol, then yeah, you better put that mouth of yours to better use instead of bringing up shit from our past that neither of us wants to actually discuss. Or would your pride prevent you?”

They stared at one another for a long, tense moment, and then Victor huffed, the sound of his surrender. He dragged his fingers down from Tony’s shirt, smearing blood down further as it came to the fastenings of Tony’s pants. 

Tony made no move to stop him, but twisted just a little to take Victor’s glass from the bartop. He saluted Victor with it and purred, “Down the hatch, Victor,” smirking as the other man went to his knees. 

He made sure to savor the liquor. 

~~

It turned out that Pierce was quiet for almost three weeks. All of Iron Man’s contacts hadn’t heard from the Hydra leader or any of his associates. So, Tony spent some of that time actually visiting Pepper to check in on his Malibu operations. The California sun had done wonders for her disposition, or maybe it had just been having a break from his constant avoidance of executive duties before making her C.E.O. Perhaps, it was even the shining diamond on her left ring finger that bore the inscription ‘With every breath, I will love you’ in a line of beautiful curls. 

He hugged her, kissed her cheek, and wished her well. She cupped his face and kissed his brow, promising to keep his company intact. He let her fiancé drive him to the airport to get to know him a little. Hogan seemed like a good guy, a little too eager for Tony’s tastes, but he shook his hand and let Hogan promise that he’d “do real good by Pepper, Mr. Stark.”

Tony waited until Hogan had driven away, then he suited up and took to the sky. “J?”

“Mr. Hogan has been cleared on all levels, sir,” Jarvis responded, and if Tony wasn’t mistaken, he sounded a little uptight as if Tony had insulted his AI by even questioning. 

Tony laughed a little. “Okay, J, okay,” and flew back to D.C. 

The rest of his ‘time off’, Tony brought Iron Man out for little things, much to Victor’s amusement, which Tony largely ignored. He couldn’t go much bigger than stealing from pocket cells’ shipments that basically amounted to nothing more than gang-war terrorism. If he tried anything larger, then SHIELD would be alerted, and Tony really wasn’t in the mood to face Captain America so soon, or again really. 

As for Tony, himself, he tried his best to avoid having to turn up to SHIELD for anything. He usually never had an issue with it, but it seemed like equipment after piece of equipment wanted to malfunction lately. Tony only trusted himself enough to fix each one, so his arrival was expected. 

What wasn’t expected was who was there to greet him. Tony didn’t stop in his tracks or slow down in surprise, but he did narrow his eyes behind his sunglasses. 

“Well, by my stars and stripes, if it isn’t Captain Rogers,” he greeted, letting a smile come to his mouth before he took his glasses off. 

Rogers’ expression twitched minutely, mouth kicking up just slightly. “Mr. Stark, it’s been a while. I wasn’t sure I’d get the pleasure of your company again.”

“Now, now, Captain. SHIELD holds exclusive contracts with SI, so you can have the pleasure of my… company anytime you’d like.” And didn’t that just garner a delightful shade of pink to dust the Captain’s cheek and nose?

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind later,” Rogers said, turning to walk beside Tony as they headed into the elevator that would take them to one the repair hangars. His expression was neutral, but Tony caught the almost nonexistent teasing in the tone of his voice. 

He’d have to keep _that_ in mind, to make sure he kept the Captain on his toes, but firmly at arm’s length. It wouldn’t do for Rogers to build an interest in him, but it was a surprise that Rogers was even beginning to hint at it. Not so innocent, Rogers had said. 

It could prove useful later, but Tony would need some time to think it through properly. 

“-turbines one and two were performing normally, but turbine three kept sputtering. No one believed that I could tell the difference, but Fury said to pull it and bring you in. So, we brought the carrier down, and after a hell of lot of noise, there’s now the biggest engine I’ve ever seen in my life in the working bay. ”

Tony leaned back against the glass of the elevator carriage and looked down over his shoulder as the hangar came into view. 

“Sputtering how?” he wondered, arching a brow in Rogers’ direction. 

Rogers made a face and kind of flapped his hand in indecision. “Do kids these days still stick baseball cards in their bicycle spokes?”

Tony blinked, looking up, and up, at Rogers. His mouth quirked. “You mean, to sound like a motorcycle? Did you do that, Captain, when you were running the streets of 1920’s Brooklyn?”

Rogers shrugged, no blush coming to his face this time. “I never really got the chance; sick too much, you see, but Bucky did. He used to ride around outside my window when I was stuck in bed. Drove me up the damn wall.”

Tony watched Rogers’ mouth downturn sadly. “Bucky Barnes, huh? Don’t hear much about him except how you two were best friends and comrades.”

“Best friends… We were brothers,” Rogers corrected softly. “Not by blood, no, but… Sometimes it’s not about the blood in your veins, but the blood you spill together.”

“Oh, that’s a little dark, soldier,” Tony murmured, mildly impressed, even though he knew it wasn’t exactly what Rogers had meant. 

That actually got a smile, halfway, but one nonetheless. It lit up his eyes, and Tony looked away from the blue, turning back to the hangar as the elevator came to a stop. 

“Steve, please,” Rogers said, the second time he’d requested it, but he couldn’t know that Tony didn’t want to give in, didn’t want to give it to him on his terms. He didn’t give Tony the chance to agree or disagree, though, stepping out of the elevator to lead Tony to the large turbine that took up more than a good chunk of the working bay.

“So it sounds like a motorcycle instead of running silent like the others,” Tony mused as he walked up to it and then around it to midpoint. He reached a hand out to smooth his fingers over the industrial material. “Hey, baby,” he crooned, “Daddy’s come to fix you.”

He heard Rogers shift, a small intake of breath just a little sharper than normal. He glanced over at Rogers and raised his brows. 

“Do you need anything else, or should I just let you get to work?” Rogers asked, shifting again and seeming to firmly ignore the blush that was back in his cheeks. 

“I’ve got everything I need, so I should be fine,” Tony replied, amused, “Run along and… save the world, I guess.”

Rogers cleared his throat again, looked like he was almost about to salute, but thought better of it, then turned and left. 

“Wow,” Tony muttered to himself, waiting until Rogers was in the elevator to actually utter anything. “If only anyone I was interested in was that easy. Alright, J, let’s get this baby pulled apart. Where’s the crane?”

~~

Three scared technicians, surely a dump truck’s worth of coffee, a stripped-off shirt, and enough accumulated engine crud covering his skin to grease an entire amusement park later, Tony was fairly furious enough to chew through one whole section of the turbine. 

“The same genetic coding?” Tony spit out, throwing a heavy, sixty-inch pipe wrench across the center of the turbine. It clattered almost maliciously between the slats all the way to the concrete floor, causing such a ruckus that even Jarvis paused. 

“It would be unwise to draw attention to this discovery, sir,” the AI admonished, and Tony inhaled deeply as he tried to count back from ten to calm down. 

“Start talking,” Tony said through his teeth. He sat down with a clunk, using the sweat rolling down his forehead to slick his hair back for the hundredth time since he’d begun working. Then, he used his discarded shirt to wipe at his brow. 

“The DNA sequence we picked up at the airport matches the DNA sequence I’ve just scanned from the internal dampeners on the turbine. Casting a wider net within the hangar alone, the sequence occurs again exactly three times. I project that the affected equipment will malfunction within the next three hours, in two days, and in one week. If not attended to, of course.

“Whomever tampered with the thorium containers at the airport has access to at least one of SHIELD’s helicarriers,” Jarvis finished, “as the equipment is all from Helicarrier Beta.”

“And how long would Beta have stayed up if Captain Shipperke hadn’t heard the turbine?” Tony asked, bracing himself a little as he pushed off the turbine to slide down between its slating. 

“Shall I begin to compile a list of pet names for Captain Rogers, as well?” Jarvis asked, and at Tony’s grunt of negation, continued, “Consistency with the tampering notwithstanding, Helicarrier Beta would have stayed up approximately one point four hours after the final malfunction in the turbine caused an overload in its other engines.”

“And the other pieces of equipment?” Tony wondered, grabbing up a pair of goggles and sliding them over his head and into place. 

“All under SHIELD-SI holistic contract two,” Jarvis answered. 

“Damn it.” Tony paused, staring at the naked inner workings of one of his babies. A holistic contract on a section of the carrier meant that only Tony was legally allowed to work on the parts therein. Which meant that whomever had access to both the thorium and the carriers was targeting him specifically. He leaned down, muscles shifting as he dragged up a fresh panel by his own makeshift pulley. Once he had it in position, he began soldering it into place.

“Quite,” Jarvis replied, “It could mean that perhaps Hydra is aware of your dual identity.”

“That is definitely not a comforting thought, and the mutated genetics are still unidentified,” Tony spoke at his normal level, knowing Jarvis could hear him without problem, “which means we’re working with a super, where before I’d assumed it was just some beefed up lackey. Any leads at all from the dirt?”

“None, sir. Since Hydra has gone silent, so have most of your contacts. I have briefed Doctor Doom according to protocol. His returned message states that he’s aware you took the brandy, and he expects the vucana wool in the color you promised in return.”

“They don’t make the Cucinelli in the color basil, I’ve checked.” By that time, Tony was rigging up another panel into the pulley system. Strands of his hair began to slip down over the goggles, and he blew forcefully up at them. When that didn’t seem to work, he leaned into the paneling and used a combination of ducking his head and lifting his elbow to try and work the goggles up into his hair. 

Of course, one warning snap later, and the pulley system began to collapse. Tony had less than a moment’s brief existence to think of his suit before he was bracketed by two very strong arms raised above his head and a very solid, hot -damn, his body temperature was ridiculously high- body shoving his own out of the way. He stumbled out from under everything, wincing as he took in the sight of the metal panel folding under the weight of the pulley. 

All of it perched, heavily, on Rogers’ shoulders and uplifted hands. He looked like a titan; Atlas, who bore the burden of the celestial spheres in punishment for opposing the new pantheon, a younger generation of gods given reign over Olympus. The analogy didn’t fit, or it would be Tony holding up the sky while Rogers stood before him; Zeus, crowned and triumphant.

“Are you okay?” 

Tony’s gaze snapped down to Rogers’ face, heart stuttering for just a moment when he fully registered what had just happened. “I’m… Yeah, I’m fine, Captain,” he replied slowly, even as he hastily clambered up the side of the turbine to get to the top of the crane. Wench intact, he began to draw the pulley back up along the splintered cabling just enough that Rogers could duck out from the panel and help guide the pulley to the ground. The panel was discarded off to the side, warped beyond a simple fix. Tony would have to take a sledgehammer to it later. 

“Are _you_ okay?” Tony asked, kneeling close to the curving edge of the turbine. He braced his hands on his knees as he peered down at Rogers. The smile he was given in return was pleased. 

“Oh, of course,” Rogers said easily, “That was nothing, but I think I damaged the panel you just put on.”

Tony looked to the panel in question and the super soldier, side-size dent in the freshly soldered panel. He sighed and took the goggles off to let them fall to the floor. 

“It’s a panel,” he decided and blinked when Rogers lifted his hands to him. “Um.”

“You’re coming down, right?” Rogers asked, patiently waiting. 

Tony was sure his expression was warily puzzled, but he shifted back to his ass and slid over the edge again. Instead of having to brace for impact like before, Rogers snagged him almost too easily by the hips to deposit him gently on the floor. His hands lingered, warm and _there_. 

Tony looked up at him, swallowed, and tried to remember that he wasn’t wearing any of his armor, sunglasses included. He licked his lips completely by mistake, heart pounding as Rogers followed the movement. They were suspended in that moment, and Tony couldn’t decide whether he wanted Rogers to try to kiss him or not, but regardless, he couldn’t let him. Not when he wasn’t sure of whom was aware of his hobby of flying around in a black and red suit and being blamed for blowing up airports. 

Not when Rogers’ blue eyes caused a phantom sensation of fingers in his hair and reminded him of brightly-colored Fruity Pebbles. The strange thing was, just as he went to open his mouth or step back or _some_ thing, Rogers withdrew with a sheepish smile. 

Tony felt himself frown slightly, but he shook himself out of it and cleared his throat. “I have to say, Cap, your timing was impeccable.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I just…”

Tony’s gaze narrowed. “You were just what?”

“Coming to see if you might be hungry,” Rogers finished in a rush, blushing too noticeably to ignore this time. 

“Oh,” Tony blinked, “I could eat. Actually, I probably should.” He waited a moment to see if his stomach would have comedic timing, and when it didn’t, he went back to ruminating on the almost-kiss. If that’s what it had been. It was entirely possible that all of it was in his head, but he didn’t own multiple doctorates to be _bad_ at reading people.

Rogers broke out another blinding smile, at ease now that his suggestion hadn’t been outright rejected. “Good, that’s good. Agent Coulson said you never took a break for lunch, so I feel it’s my duty to drag you away and make sure you get something more nutritional than the sludge they call coffee here.”

“Thank you! Finally, someone agrees with me about the coffee,” Tony exclaimed. He pointed at Rogers, shaking his finger slightly. “I’m onto you, Rogers. You’re just trying to work yourself into my good graces. What are you angling for? New bike? New Kevlar parachute?”

“I don’t use pa-” Rogers cut off at Tony’s raised brows. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight, falling into a parade rest. And wasn’t that adorable? Tony really needed him to stop. “I don’t have an ulterior motive other than you needing to eat, and I haven’t had dinner yet either.”

“Dinner?” It finally registered that Rogers had said he’d missed lunch. Without asking, Jarvis supplied the time in his ear; past dinner time. He leaned back against the turbine and eyed Rogers. “No ulterior motive, huh? Just doing your duty as a concerned citizen to feed me? What about the other bay workers in here? Jerry over there hasn’t eaten either.”

“Yes, I have. Cafeteria’s got tacos today,” Jerry said unhelpfully as he towed a crate of scrap from another project and passed where they stood inside the turbine. 

“Shut up, Jerry.” Tony rolled his eyes. “Always contradicting me.”

Rogers was watching Tony with a softer, half smile. “What an asshole.”

Tony barked out a laugh at that, mindful of the way his cheeks stayed stretched in a smile after his initial amusement. “Alright, Rogers, you win. I’ll let you let me treat you to dinner, but I definitely need to get cleaned up first.”

“I don’t know; I think engineer-chic is in style these days,” Rogers replied, “but if you’re sure.”

“Are you saying I’m more fashionable like this than in my over-the-top expensive suits?” Tony feigned indignation. 

“Yes,” Rogers said easily, “You have to know that.”

“I know nothing of the sort. I reject the implication.”

Rogers took a step closer -too close- and said, firm and entreating, “I like seeing people as they really are, without their masks and their armor. I like seeing people be themselves, and this? This is what you really are, Tony. I think that’s easy to see now, most of all, without your fancy business suits and shining glasses. So passionate about what you love that you lose yourself in it, unaware of the world around you and how it revolves. 

“You’ve spent fourteen hours working on this turbine, barely pausing long enough to chew your coffee, and I know that it’s far from your longest binge. It probably doesn’t even rate in your top…” He trailed off, a range on the tip of his tongue, but something in Tony’s expression must have changed his choice. “...your top twenty binges.”

Tony smiled, this time fake, fake as anything he could do with sunglasses on. “For a moment there, you almost had me. I’m always aware of what revolves around me.”

Rogers didn’t say anything back at first, but then, he stepped forward again. This time, there was no mistaking the intent, leaving Tony with the decision too soon. 

Rogers lifted a hand, hesitated as he searched Tony’s face, then carefully rubbed at Tony’s cheek. Tony felt grease give way under Rogers’ thumb, and while he was relaxed against the turbine, his heart was pounding fiercely. 

Rogers smiled, another small thing. “You’re right about that, too. You should probably get cleaned up. I don’t know many restaurants that’d let you in looking like that.” 

Tony had to force himself -and seriously, he’d examine that thoroughly later- to avoid the date-like setting of dinner with the Captain. He made a thoughtful noise, like sucking breath through his teeth. 

“Tell you what, Cap. I’d really hate to get all cleaned up just to come back here and get all dirty again, so why don’t you run out and get dinner, and we’ll eat here?” Tony watched Rogers’ expression process his words then go quietly neutral. He felt bereft for a moment when the hand on his cheek pulled away. 

“Sure,” Rogers replied, smiling the same sort of smile Tony gave the reporters who asked him his opinion on Iron Man. It was ‘real’, accepting without showing its disappointment. “Anything off the menu?”

“Under no circumstances are you to get anything with the word ‘fried’ in the name,” Tony said, affecting a snobbish air. He even lifted his nose. Rogers’ smile went a little less ‘real’, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief, then mentally smacked himself upside the head for the whole stupid situation. “Unless it comes with the word oreo.”

“Fried...oreos?” Rogers looked puzzled, slightly horrified but also slightly intrigued. 

“Oh, Cap, they’re sheltering you,” Tony laughed. He made a ‘shooing’ motion with his hands. “Go on, then. Dinner. I’ll be right here, starving.”

Rogers seemed to shake himself out of his momentary fugue and hurried off with a wave over his shoulder and a teasing “Right away, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony watched him leave and knew he, himself, was neither Atlas nor Zeus. He was only a man, after all; Icarus, who was doomed to fall beneath the exhilaration of his flight and drown in the sea of regret. He turned and began to work on getting the damaged panel back off the turbine, ignoring the phantom sensation of melting wax dripping down his spine. 

Dinner, it turned out, consisted of two bowls of black truffle gnocchi, and two main courses: one, a lobster ravioli with roe, and two, a beef tortellini that Tony wondered if Rogers would have eaten had he known what it was. They both came with a sprig of mint and three pieces of lightly-glazed asparagus, ostensibly held together by a thin strip of scallion. Pretentious and expensive; what Tony thought most people expected him to dine on as a normal person would dine on Pizza Hut or Burger King when they didn’t feel like cooking that night.

It was all carefully piled onto one large tray held in Rogers’ steady hands. He looked sheepish, but determined, as he stepped into the ring of the turbine and cleared his throat to get Tony’s attention. 

Tony took in the sight of it, confirming to himself what he’d guessed this was supposed to have been: a date. Then, he pushed his goggles into his hair and put his tools in the crate beside his low stool. 

“Do you need help?” he asked, but Rogers shook his head. 

“No, but thanks. I, um, didn’t know exactly what to get, so Coulson told me about this place a few blocks past the National History Museum. I hope that’s alright.” Rogers looked like any negative response might make him sink into the floor, so Tony huffed out a smile. 

“It’s fine. I mean, I admit that I was expecting something more like a sandwich shop, but…” He craned his head to the side to peer at the bag hanging from the crook of Steve’s arm, “ _Fiola_ is good. I didn’t realize they did take out.”

“They don’t normally. The host recognized me.” 

“Lucky us,” Tony hummed. 

Rogers busied himself with kneeling down to set everything out on the floor for them. Out of the bag, he pulled take-out dining ware, two large bottles of water, and a styrofoam take-out container with two smaller containers taped to its lid. It smelled disgustingly, mouthwateringly good, and Tony pointed at it. 

“That’s not from _Fiola_ ,” he said. “What is that?”

Rogers bit his lip and shrugged a soldier. “Dessert?”

Tony’s stomach fluttered. _Oh no_ , he thought. Will Robinson’s robot was flailing in his mind, using Fury’s voice as he cried havoc and let loose the dogs of war. It left Tony’s thoughts in shambles from the pillaging hordes, and he settled in a cross-legged position across from Rogers on the other side of the tray. 

It should have been just a quick, simple meal. It should’ve been no big deal, easy to ignore Rogers’ obvious interest. It should’ve been easy for Tony to remember why all of this, why Rogers, was such a bad idea. Instead, Tony was forced to realize that it wasn’t flying too close to the sun that would be his downfall, but a goddamn take-out box containing fried oreos and ice cream.

“Thank you, Steve.”

Dinner, as it also turned out, was nice. 

~~

“Then maybe it’s not about bringing him in. Maybe it’s about bringing him down, permanently.”

“You don’t think I’ve thought of that, Captain? You’ve seen it now, though, that suit, that tech, and what it can do. You’ve watched the footage, analyzed the data. We could use him!” 

“How many does he have to kill before you realize how bad an idea that is?” 

Tony’s chin dipped briefly towards his chest, sunglasses -his personal protection- perched snug across his nose. Inside the pockets of his dark gray slacks, his hands were fisted to stop them shaking. The famous saying ‘eavesdroppers never hear good about themselves’ seemed to be spot on that day. Fury, of course, wouldn’t have a rebuttal satisfying enough for Captain Rogers. 

The argument, for their voices had gotten very loud by that point, faded to a buzz of conversation that Tony couldn’t quite decipher. He kicked off the wall to take the few steps across the hall to the windows. Looking out over D.C., Tony felt a lying sense of peace. The cherry blossoms were bright and pink and filling the air with their thick, floral scent. Tony knew, though, how much of a lie it really was. If one got close enough to the trees, they’d see the browning petals, the buds dying that would never get the chance to be full blooms. They would see the ground littered in a graveyard smeared over pink and yellow. 

Tony hated how it made him feel hollow inside. There were some people who believed in omens concerning cherry blossoms, believed they held a deep, spiritual meaning. He thought they simply signaled how fragile life truly was, and that even if it looked as pretty as that on the surface, there was still nothing but the stain of life on the ground left as proof. He tracked a couple, small and indistinguishable from his position in the building, as they got caught in an eddy of the falling petals. The pink swirled around them and past to flutter off in the grass or into the water. 

“Tony!” 

Warmth, unbidden, flooded through Tony at Steve’s exclamation of delight. Always the same, day after day they met, always pleased and still just a little surprised, and always sweeping forward to offer his hand to Tony. They didn’t shake anymore, though, because Steve had taken to just holding Tony’s hand for a moment or two longer than Tony should have liked, but found he didn’t really mind. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve was saying, “the meeting was longer than I expected. Do you still have time for lunch?” 

Steve’s gaze swept over Tony’s wine-red shirt, the gray suit, the sunglasses. He lingered there, on Tony’s face, and Tony knew he was ticking off the slight lines in Tony’s expression. He smiled easily, teeth on display as he squeezed Steve’s hand. 

“You know by now that I don’t really keep a schedule, but right now, you’re at the top of the list, Cap,” Tony replied, “Though, right below the Marian Koshland Science Museum today. There’s a group of prospective engineers visiting, and I wanted to surprise them with Dum-E and U. I figured the robots would get a kick out of it. They love playing with children. So I ca-”

Tony didn’t get to finish his sentence as Steve’s hands cupped his face and tilted him up into a kiss. His grip on Tony’s jaw was gentle, easy, but his mouth was intense, a demanding pressure that Tony could’ve melted under. As it was, he did part his lips, let Steve’s tongue sweep in along his own, deep, claiming. The moan, when Tony heard it, was shaky and his own. 

Steve let him pull away from the kiss, but not his hands. His thumbs stroked along Tony’s jawline as he watched his reflection in Tony’s glasses, but Tony knew that this close, Steve could see through the lenses. 

“Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” Tony began, making his voice low and amused, “but to what do I owe such an honor?”

“You’re going to go surprise a group of children who want to be scientists when they grow up with full-fledged AI-operating robotic mechanics,” Steve breathed like the very idea of it was the Eighth Wonder of the World. 

“Well, I wouldn’t call them full-fledged,” Tony hemmed, “Especially not Dum-E. He’s got that name for a reason, you know. He’s more like… half-fledged, still working on spelling ‘cat’.”

“He’s amazing. _You’re_ amazing,” Steve said with a shake of his head and went to kiss Tony again. 

Tony put a finger against Steve’s mouth, stopping him. “Keep that up, and no, I won’t have time for lunch.”

Steve’s eyes were a much darker blue at the moment, but his smile was still soft, still caught in wonder. Then, it was curving into a tease. “Okay, but promise I can play footsies under the table with you.”

Tony’s laugh was only a little hysterical, but maybe that was just to his own ears. 

~~

“It can still be overwhelming some days,” Steve was admitting as he scraped the butter knife over his roll. He’d split it easily between his fingers, thumb nail slicing down the center of it in a way that shouldn’t have had desire warming Tony’s gut and yet… “It’s getting better, though. The past couple of months have helped a lot.”

Tony hid his smile behind his coffee mug as he lifted it to his mouth. True to Steve’s word, his foot was casually displacing the expensive fabric of Tony’s slacks, rucking up the leg to press against Tony’s calf. 

“I’m glad you think I help.”

“Oh, I meant Call of Duty,” Steve smirked, wriggling his toes against Tony’s leg, “but you’re pretty swell too.”

“Stop. Am I blushing?” Tony deadpanned. “Honestly, how you play those games is beyond me. You were in a war, wasn’t that enough?”

Steve shrugged, taking a few moments to chew as he waved his hand. Tony ignored the endearing warmth at the sight and looked around the small café. He wasn’t much of a people watcher, but the café was close to SHIELD and a lot of personnel tended to pass through. 

“I don’t play for the war aspect of it,” replied Steve after clearing his throat, “I do it because everyone else playing is an asshole, so I don’t feel bad kicking their asses. Also, I really like the zombie mode.”

“You never cease to amaze me.” Tony laughed softly and checked the watch on his wrist. He was about to continue speaking when another voice announced the shadow that fell over Tony’s left shoulder. 

“Captain Rogers, hello.”

Tony had had years of practice at hiding the revulsion that oozed down his spine at the sound of that voice, more than enough that when he lifted his gaze to watch Steve rise from his seat, he appeared merely bemused at being interrupted. He pulled his napkin from his lap as Steve reached out to take Alexander Pierce’s hand. 

“Hello, sir,” Steve greeted with a smile. 

“You’re usually such a busy man, Captain. I’m surprised Nick let you out to play today,” Pierce said, clearly content in ignoring Tony’s presence for the moment. 

“Well, sometimes a man has to make time for the important things,” Steve answered and indicated Tony with an open hand, “I try not to miss a lunch date when my boyfriend’s time is so valuable. I’m sure you know how it is.”

That was Tony and Pierce’s cue to to exchange past due greetings, but Tony’s heart was currently stopped in his chest as he stared at Steve. 

“Ah, of course. Stark, you’re even less accessible than our dear Captain,” Pierce said and made no move to shake Tony’s hand. “Why, I haven’t seen you since the Memorial.”

That brought Tony’s heart back online with a shuddering, angry beat. He bit into his cheek and reminded himself what it would feel like when he put his fist through the man’s poster-like smile. 

“Were you there?” Tony wondered, leaning on an elbow as he turned in his seat. He casually crossed his legs and thought about how Steve was standing there almost at attention with only one shoe on. He smiled. “I honestly hadn’t noticed.”

“Maybe it was the open bar. Though, I’ll admit I wasn’t there for long. The same speeches and platitudes. I know how much you hate those,” Pierce said with a jesting tone that quickly disappeared as Steve frowned. “I was actually meaning to make time to visit you myself this month. I heard the strangest thing last week.”

Tony knew exactly where Pierce was going with that, and he clasped his fingers together as he raised his brows. He hadn’t brought it up to Steve yet, so he wasn’t going to be the one to initiate the conversation there either. 

“Politics never seemed to be in your wheelhouse, Stark, so you can imagine my disbelief in the rumor mill that you’re planning on running?”

“You are?” Steve cut in, blinking in surprise.

“It was discussed,” Tony replied with a nonchalant shrug, “but nothing has been formally declared.”

“I don’t expect it will be either, will it?” Pierce seemed amused. “You’ve just opened Stark International, I’d assumed that would be keeping you rather busy. Especially with the recent requisitions from SHIELD, and all of your… extracurricular activities. Captain Rogers was correct when he said your time was fairly valuable.”

Tony could feel Steve bristling across the table, but he kept his gaze on Pierce, playing the game with graceful aplomb… Which he figured he earned simply by not placing Steve’s dirty knife in Pierce’s trachea. 

“I’ve always found managing my time rather easy.” Tony smoothed a hand over his knee, pressing out a wrinkle. “I even account for interruptions, so politics could just be another note to add to the harmony, or more like… It’s like a metronome; you just have to learn how to play to the steady, inexorable beat.”

Tony signed the bill that had been left with their meal and stood. He felt the table shake slightly, most likely from Steve shoving his foot back into his shoe. He met Pierce’s gaze again.

“It just so happens that I think the current conductor can’t handle the score and has outgrown his position.”

Pierce’s expression went through several twitches before it settled in a pinched, but polite, smile. 

“Well then, I guess I should say good luck, Mr. Stark.”

“And to you as well. I’m sorry to cut this short, but I must get back to work. Perhaps another time,” Tony said, not returning the smile in any way. 

“I’ll walk with you,” Steve said immediately. He almost saluted Pierce then seemed to make the forceful decision not to. He did nod in acknowledgement and said ‘Sir,” before following Tony out of the café. 

They walked quietly for a minute or two, the backs of their hands brushing until Steve took Tony’s hand to hold. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asked and Tony huffed, squeezing Steve’s hand in response. 

“Talk about what exactly?”

Steve hesitated, but gamely soldiered on with the conversation. 

“The memorial he mentioned… Did he mean the one for your parents?”

“Yes,” replied Tony, “It was the twentieth anniversary this past December. The city threw them a huge celebration on my dime. I don’t doubt for a minute that Pierce didn’t stay long. It’s hard to stomach when you know the truth, and the people don’t. They celebrate brilliance and forward thinking, and they mourn senseless death at the hands of alcohol. They shake their heads and whisper behind their hands about how ‘it’s such a shame he got himself and his wife killed drunk driving.

“Is it any wonder I get smashed at the damn memorials? They love me like they love the circus. Something spectacular. A trainwreck. Nascar cras-”

“Tony, wait. What? Are you saying you don’t think it was an accident?” Steve stopped walking, tugging Tony around and to a stop too. “Do you think he did it on purpose?”

“What?! God no! Howard would never. As much as he didn’t love me, he loved my mother. And I’m sure he planned to outlive me just so he had one more thing he could shake his head in disappointment at.”

Steve was quiet, then he pulled Tony into a hug. He waited until Tony finally brought his arms up, too, to return the gesture before he spoke.

“I don’t think he’d be disappointed in you now, Tony.” Tony felt the fine hairs around his ear tickle softly with Steve’s breath. “I think he’d be amazed at the empire you’ve built from his name. Yeah, I know. Howard was an asshole, but you’re going to carry the Stark name to the stars, Tony, and that’s all Howard could even dream to do.”

Tony blinked at the sky behind Steve’s shoulder. When the burn of tears threatened, he turned his face to Steve’s neck and sighed, clenching his hands in the back of Steve’s shirt. He relaxed as Steve’s larger hands stroked down his spine in soothing passes. 

After a moment, he ventured; “So, boyfriend, huh?”

Steve tensed then straightened back to look at Tony sheepishly. His smile was endearing and Tony wanted to punch him in the face.

“I didn’t like the way Pierce ignored you. I guess I was sorta… making a - a statement?”

“A statement or a claim?” Tony wondered sardonically, raising his brows. He pulled his glasses from his face and tucked them inside his suit jacket before reaching for his sunglasses from the other pocket.

Steve caught Tony’s wrist to stop him from putting them on. His expression was still sheepish, but edging into serious, decisive. 

“Both,” he answered. 

“Well, how about that,” Tony murmured, “You think you can claim me?”

“I think I can sweep you off your feet until you let me.” Steve smiled brightly. 

“Hm, don’t take it as a challenge, darling,” Tony replied with his own half-smile, “but I wasn’t joking when I said I had to get going. I don’t want to miss the children’s tour.”

“Oh shoot, that’s right. Come on,” Steve announced, taking Tony’s hand again and drawing him along the sidewalk. “Have you and Pierce always disliked each other?”

“No,” Tony answered, “but it’s pretty close.” 

“Why? I mean, everyone adores him. He’s… He’s -what did Fury call him?”

“America’s Sweetheart?” Tony offered blandly. He followed behind Steve as he created a path through the lunch crowds. 

“Yeah… That… I don’t get that. Well, I understand it, I guess. He cleaned up the East Coast, set the precedent for the other zones. He united his country.” But even Steve sounded a little skeptical as he recited something he’d most likely read in his ‘modernization’ dump. 

“So did Hitler,” Tony said casually, “but it’s all about perspective. They say crime is at an all-time low across the nation, but especially here on the East Coast, but that only means reported crime. They don’t talk about what won’t look good.”

“They report on terrorism,” Steve pointed out, “Iron Man, for one.”

“Iron Man doesn’t count,” Tony dismissed himself easily, “He’s an anomaly, like you. I meant violent crimes, groups, mafias, etcetera. Reported crimes are at an all-time low, but you know what’s risen in its place?”

Steve shook his head, leading Tony down into the SHIELD garage where Tony’s car was parked. Their voices were oddly loud in the silence of the steel around them. Tony automatically lowered his tone. 

“Missing persons,” Tony supplied. He stepped past Steve when they reached his car. Opening the door, he turned to face Steve. “Activists. Rioters. Disagreeables, I think Pierce once called them. Anyone old enough to buck utopia’s system. If they aren’t old enough, then their parents.”

“You think Alexander Pierce is kidnapping civilians?” Steve said with an astonished huff of amusement, “I may not agree with everything he says, especially about you, but he’s clearly doing everything he can to make the people’s lives easier, to help the country run smoother.”

“Yeah, yeah he is,” Tony agreed, “When the camps come, he’ll say the same thing.”

Steve frowned. 

“Is that why you’re running? Because you think he’s America’s Hitler?”

“If I say yes, will you vote for me?” Tony asked, batting his lashes at Steve. The effect was muted due to the sunglasses he’d finally put on, but Steve still rolled his eyes. 

“I’d have to hear your platform first,” Steve teased, leaning down to kiss Tony goodbye, “Text me later and tell me how the tour went and if the kids loved your robots as much as I do.”

“Do you remember how to open your messages?” Tony asked sweetly. 

“Naw,” Steve drawled, backing away until he turned around to head for the elevator, “I get Siri to read them out loud.”

It left Tony bristling in indignation. “Siri is an assault on humanity, Steven Rogers! I swear to God you better drown that crappy tech!”

Steve only waved over his shoulder and then was gone. Tony stuck his tongue out at the spot he had been then slid into his driver seat. He stared at the steering wheel for a long time before pressing the start button. 

He’d decided a long time ago that Hitler’s death was too easy for Pierce. He wouldn’t let Pierce evade him that way, deny him the satisfaction of ripping out his heart and even eating it if he wanted. 

Not to say he wanted to eat it, but the point still stood. 

By the time Iron Man was done with that man, Pierce would beg for something so simple as suicide. 

~~

Two days after that lunch, an explosion took out three terminals in the Fort Worth Meacham International Airport. Tony wasn’t even in the country, let alone Texas, but to his furious realization as he watched the news, the world thought Iron Man was. And by all accounts, he was, but it wasn’t him… Victor played the tapes over, reviewing the footage, as Tony combed through the data the investigators had gathered or left behind. 

“It’s quite a good imitation, I must say,” supplied Victor. He set the remote on his desk behind his hip where he leaned against rich wood. Tony would never say it to Victor’s face -okay, he totally would, just not right now when he needed his help-, but Victor looked exhausted, strained. Tony briefly considered asking him about why that may be, but then… didn’t. 

“Are we sure that’s what it is?” Tony asked, throwing strings of information from one screen to the other. All of the entry points were arranging and ordering themselves according to an equation he and Jarvis had put together. “I’m pretty sure that’s our super, and I’m not so sure that they’re copycatting the suit. I think-wait! Pause that!”

Victor startled a bit at Tony’s outburst, raising his brows in surprise, but Tony just scoffed in disgruntled impatience and stretched for the remote. He was nowhere close to reaching it, so Victor rolled his eyes and took up the remote again to rewind the footage until Tony made a flailing gesture that Victor supposed meant stop.

“Jay, blow this up, focus on the left gauntlet.” Tony climbed out of his seat to get closer to the screen where the proposed Iron Man was poised mid-flight. 

“Anthony,” Victor began slowly, but Tony held up a hand. 

“Do you see what I see?” Tony asked, shaking a finger slowly at the film. 

“If you start singing Chris-”

“No! What? Shut up, and look! Whoever this is, they know the suit… but they don’t know how it works. Look!” He made a few frustrated gestures at the screen, to Victor, and back to the screen. 

Victor watched Tony in silence for a moment then rolled his eyes again and pushed away from the desk to stand closer to the screen too, to stand closer to Tony. After a minute or two, he frowned and heard Tony hold his breath. 

“The repulsors are hollow,” he realized flatly. “They don’t have your miniaturized reactors.” 

“Exactly!” Tony decreed, clapping Victor on the shoulder hard enough to sway the other man forward a bit. “You know what this means, right?”

“Anthony, would you please do us both the favor and just spit it out already,” Victor pulled away from Tony, fixing the placement of his vest over his shirt. 

“It _means_ that with the strands of genetic coding our mystery person is leaving around and the fact that they got a working Iron Man suit without it actually working properly due to the whole ‘no power system’ thing-” there, Tony thumped his chest, suppressed his automatic wince, and carried on, “-that we are definitely dealing with a person of magic!”

Silence followed Tony’s pronouncement, and Tony slowly lowered his hand with a vicious curse. He angled himself to look back at Victor while leaving an easy twist point to his armor. 

“Victor.”

Victor gave a humming sigh and turned to the bar. “If you’re going to make an accusation, then please do so now, so that we may get it out of the way.” 

Tony’s expression twisted, lip curling just a little. Betrayal was poised to be a heavy stone in his gut. “Victor, are you doing this? Are you helping Pierce? Did you tell him who I was?”

“Not even a hint of hesitation,” Victor murmured, not turning around to face Tony. He continued, louder: “I believe it would be a good time for you to leave, before you further insult my hospitality. Good night, Anthony.”

“Vic-”

“ _Good night_... Anthony.” 

Tony stared at Victor’s back, the tense and tired lines of it, and in another life, he might have stayed, might have reached out and tried to ease whatever burden was on Victor’s shoulders. Instead, he turned on his heel and marched out. With a snap of his fingers and Jarvis’ assistance, the Variant followed.

~~

 _“The death toll continues to rise as rescue workers rush to pull survivors from the wreckage of the_ Harmony _after another explosion mere seconds ago. In the distance, the_ Seawise Giant _has finally been surrounded by military ships as Captain America continues his confrontation with known terrorist, Iron Man. It’s unclear still what motivation Iron Man had in attacking the tanker other than pure devastation. As the rescue efforts continue, we will keep a close eye on this tragedy as it unfolds. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of this senseless act. For_ Fox News, _I’m Ch-_ ”

Tony didn’t catch the name of the reporter as he clutched the rim of the trash can with shaking, weak hands and vomited violently. Just as he thought it was over, his stomach heaved again, seizing the breath in his throat. His eyes watered, his entire body drenched in sick-sweat, as he struggled to draw in air around his body’s seemingly-automatic convulsions. 

A sob managed to escape him - _It’s okay, Master Anthony. It’ll be over soon._ \- choking him briefly, before he finally, finally, managed to breathe properly. He slumped to the floor, careful not to tip over the trash can as he moved. He pressed his forehead to the hardwood and drew shaky breath after shaky breath, sucking in air greedily while the news feed continued in the background. His sheet slid off the bed, puddling just out of reach.

He squeezed his eyes shut, knocked his forehead against the floor once, then again, then steadied himself. Everything hurt, as it was wont to do during the flu, and he didn’t have the energy to get into his bed, let alone push away memories of the past. Not after the effort he’d exerted to get to the trashcan in the first place. He turned his face towards the television on the wall, peering blearily at the images of the oil tanker exploding. The supertanker that had been scrapped in 2010 shouldn’t have even been in any condition to be in the water, let alone explosion-worthy. 

A moot point, Tony knew, but he tended to focus on those. Another video feed overtook the current news station, and he watched as Captain America caught Iron Man by the ankle and threw him into one of the smoking containers remaining on the _Seawise_. He scoffed at the sight. 

“He wishes he could throw the real suit,” Tony muttered to the floor, blocking out the scroll of text that counted the number of dead passengers from the cruise line already identified. His head was pounding, begging his body for the sweet relief of oblivion even as he struggled to figure out what the magical copycat was even trying to do. “What the fuck are you after?”

He couldn’t even muster the energy to pull up his data files to input all of the specifics of the incident. He’d have to rewatch the footage later when he wasn’t dying. He coughed weakly and scrambled up for the trashcan.

After all, all he could blame then was that the copycat simply wanted to ruin any chance of Tony revealing his identity for fear of reprisal. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

“J… make a… note…” Tony panted. 

“At your word, sir,” Jarvis replied. 

“Gotta make a… trap… a magic trap… A trap for... for magic... “ Tony’s head disappeared in the trash can again, and he dry-heaved, hands trembling against the hard plastic. “Sensors… deprivation… Dead zone…”

“Noted, sir. Will there be anything else?” 

“Tell… Steve… I won’t… make dinner,” Tony said then laughed, and laughed until he was throwing up again. It didn’t look like Steve would be making dinner either. 

Jarvis’ response to that was lost in the echo of the trashcan, and then Tony was collapsing again, already blacking out as his body gave in against its fight to stay awake. Later, he was briefly aware of touch, of motion, heat all along his left side, but it was too much effort to surface, to pry his eyes open. 

_Make it a quick death…_ The thought was fleeting, gone before Tony was really aware of thinking it, and he followed it to the muffled sound of a low rumble that vibrated Tony’s arm down into sleep. 

He dreamt of a carousel and a lion chasing a polar bear, a cheetah leaping beyond them both. It spun and spun until the polar bear was sinking, sinking, sinking into the dark depths of the frigid waters. And Tony lie on the bow, a gauntleted hand still outstretched towards the water. Behind him, Steve’s displeasure and disgust were evident.

_“Letting me die. Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you'd better stop pretending to be a hero.”_

“I didn’t- I tried-” both of which Tony meant to start his response with, but what came out was: _”A hero? Like you? Everything special about you came out of a bottle! You just go where you’re pointed, following orders like a good little pet. Maybe if you thought for yourself, you’d be swimming right now.”_

_“Put on the suit, let’s-”_

_“Why won’t you swim? Why are you giving up?! You’re supposed to fight for what you want! If anyone’s the coward here, it’s not me!”_

Steve’s expression was shocked, and he was drenched in seawater, pale and frigid as the ocean. He lifted his hand, and it wasn’t the shield he held. The report of the gunshot followed Tony into waking. 

“-nd then they start taking off the tires! Now, Buck was definitely way more interested in things like that, but I gotta admit that it looked real neat. When the car started to hover, I think everyone thought it was just a magic trick, so they weren’t surprised to see it fail. But…”

Tony turned his head on the pillow, feeling like he’d been hit by a semi-truck or two. His entire body was one large ache, but it was centered mostly around his sides and lower back. He got the feeling that if he coughed, his abdomen would scream bloody murder. There was the sound of pencil on paper and he managed to crack his eyes open enough to see Steve’s watery, blurry profile. 

“I believed in him, though. Your father, I mean. I saw what he could do with those engines and I read about the work he’d done with the government that was never in the papers. He was… a brilliant, overwhelming force of unbridled thirst for knowledge and the future. On paper, he was a great man.

“But the world can be a funny place, can’t it? It didn’t take a genius to peg Howard as an asshole. All it took was a familiar expression. Howard used to get this look in his eye…” Steve’s pencil paused, but he turned the notepad he was working in around and resumed. “My dad used to get that same look before my ma ended up with a busted lip.”

He looked over to Tony then, and if he was surprised to see Tony awake, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he’d noticed the change in Tony’s breathing, the shift in the atmosphere when you’re no longer the only awareness in the room. He just kept talking like Tony had been listening the entire time. 

“I asked her once, asked her why she stayed with him. I was just a dumb kid at the time, though, and I guess I expected some grand declaration about love and devotion, but I remember… She sat me down at the kitchen table and took one of my hands in both of hers. She had a black eye at the time, swelled almost all of her cheek, but she smiled and it was genuine. She squeezed my hand and said ‘He may not be a Prince Charming, Stevie, but our life is no fairy tale. He goes tae work, and he comes home. He makes sure we’ve got money for food and heat and the medicines that I need tae make sure you get the life you deserve. But times are tough now for everyone, my sweet babe. This country let us in it, but it dinnae offer any of us a free ride. If all it be is a tap here tae there that keeps him here tae support you, then by the good Lord’s spine, I will bend tae his wind and see you raised.’

“Of course as I’m sure the whole world knows, when Ma lost my brother, Da never recovered. He drank more, lost his job, gave up trying to find another. He died when I was six, and I’ll never forget the way Ma cried, like he was something worth mourning. ‘Tragedy changes a man’, she said to me as we walked up the grass aisle to his casket.”

“But that doesn’t make it right,” Tony rasped. His throat was thick with emotion, with the knowledge that Steve’s eidetic memory meant he was going to relive every abusive moment with his father in perfect detail for as long as the serum made him live.

Steve looked tired; the lines around his eyes were noticeable in the dim lights of Tony’s bedroom. He had a few bruises himself that were healing around his jaw and the bridge of his nose. His breathing seemed okay, though, which made Tony relax a little more. He reached for him, fingertips just barely contacting the denim crease at Steve’s bent knee. Steve smiled easily, shifting the balance of the notepad to take Tony’s hand in his own. He laced their fingers together and Tony was aware of how clammy his own felt.

“‘It don’t,’ she said, ‘It makes ‘im human.’”

~~

The crowd was still cheering, sounding tinny and distant from the square television suspended in the corner above the bar. The volume was just high enough to be a low buzz for most of the patrons, but Steve could hear it crystal clear. He picked at a peanut shell as he let his gaze travel up to the screen where banners and posters fought valiantly to block the news cameras. 

A reporter was speaking from offscreen, a different language to the English captions that lagged five seconds behind their speech. Steve didn’t need those, though. He understood exactly what was happening. The East Coast was welcoming its first official candidate for office against the incumbent Pierce since he’d stepped in to take charge. 

The stage and podium were still empty, but it was easy to see Tony’s influence on the set and display. Simple and tasteful overall, the feeling --while not modest-- was respectful and classy. Steve huffed to the tumbler in front of him, the corner of his mouth ticking up in bemusement, and knocked back the shot of alcohol that threatened to burn out his nose hairs just from the ethanol aroma alone. 

Even he couldn’t help making a face afterwards. 

“God, that stuff must be strong if it’s got you of all people grimacing.” The seat beside Steve was being filled and the smile came easily to Steve’s face. 

“Daruĭte!” he called down to the bartender. When she looked over, he held up his empty glass. “Dva? Bud’ laska.”

She gave him a thumbs-up and Steve stretched over to put the empty glass on the drink runner. Tony was talking on stage then, his voice clear to the crowds while the reporter softly spoke over him in Russian.

_“-but I don’t remember ever voting for a totalitarian government. I can’t sit by anymore and idly accept the ‘fall in line or suffer the consequences’ route that our officials are taking. Too many times we’ve allowed this government to fool us, to treat us like pigs and lead us to the trough to feed on the muck and slop of pleasant lies and half-spit truths.”_

_“What makes you different, Mr. Stark?”_

_“Ms. Patel, that’s an excellent question.”_

“Did you just… Do I even want to know what it is? Please tell me it’s just regular… Tell me it’s something I’ll know.”

“Calm down, Sam,” Steve laughed, “It’s just vodka.”

“Just vodka?” Sam eyed Steve, skepticism practically dripping from him. 

“Okay, it’s not just vodka. She called it ‘Samohonka’. Apparently her father made it. He’s in Ukraine. She just got it the other day.”

Sam plucked the glass from the runner to sniff it cautiously.

“It smells like paint stripper.”

“Tastes like it too. One drink will probably put you on your ass,” Steve said easily, shelling another peanut. He knew Sam would read it as a challenge. 

“Oh, ha ha,” Sam replied. He folded his arms on the bar edge after putting the glass back and looked up to the television. “I can’t believe he’s actually doing it. That crazy son-of-a-bitch is the only one who could, and he’s still probably going to show up a week from now in a body bag.”

“Sam,” Steve admonished, crushing the peanut.

“Right,” Sam drew out, “How’s that going for you? Fury still hounding you for intel?”

Steve pushed the bowl away and gave Sam and the broadcast his attention.

“No. I’m pretty sure he’s sure I’d tell him if I did find anything. Thing is, I don’t think there is anything to find. I’ve been all over his house, nothing was restricted, nothing keeping me out of any of his stuff. Granted, I didn’t dig too deeply, but he’s got that A.I. so who knows how far it would’ve let me get into files.”

“No sign of any flying metal diapers?” Sam grinned as Steve rolled his eyes. 

_”I’d love to stand up here today and tell you that I’m going to give the power back to the people. I’d love to be able to give you, all of you, the microphone and assure you that your voice will be heard. But I can’t, because the people have never had the power. Even before times like these where elected terms feel like cave drawings and Zone officials act more like dictators._

_History shows again and again how this country suffers for it. I want to give the people the power. I want them to know the truth about who they’re voting for. About me, and what I’m willing to do for them.”_

“No sign of anything other than the requisition pieces for SHIELD, and I had plenty of time to look. He was so fucking out of it. I thought I was going to have to take him to the hospital. I’ve never seen someone hit with the flu like that in this era. Didn’t you guys cure this shit?”

The bartender placed two drinks in front of Steve, greeting Sam briefly with a smile before walking to the next customer. Steve pushed a drink over to Sam just as the crowd went wild again to Tony’s spread arms and press smile. 

“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” Sam said on a sigh, “You should’ve walked away the moment you started liking him. It’s like all these stories, right? Never fall in love with the mark. It never goes smoothly. But hey, I think at least half of them get a happy ending.”

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” Steve muttered, blushing. 

“What?” Sam blinked. 

“The…” Steve gestured, clearly embarrassed if not a little frustrated. “Happy ending. He’s… I thought he would’ve tried to sleep with me by now, bu-”

“Oh my god, no!” Sam vigorously shook his head and pointed the index finger of his hand holding his glass at Steve. “That is not what I meant. At all. I really don’t wanna hear about your sex life.”

“There isn’t one to hear about! That’s what I’m saying,” Steve said, “I don’t get it. He flirts like air, like it’s just him breathing, but…”

Sam downed his drink and visibly struggled not to come up coughing. Steve watched him patiently, leaning his cheek on his fist. 

“Overreact much?” he asked dryly.

Sam just shot him an annoyed look and signalled for another round. 

“I can’t help you with your sex life either, not where Stark is concerned. He’s older than you, than me. Maybe he needs a little… help to get things going, yeah? Maybe he’s Asexual. I don’t know. Why don’t you just ask? Have _you_ tried to initiate?”

Steve pondered that then shook his head. 

“What if he feels something’s off?” Sam wondered after a moment while Steve contemplated his empty glass. He felt Sam glance his way.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? He’s a genius; he’s probably light years ahead of us when it comes to how to wipe our asses. I really don’t think he’d miss Fury being suspicious of him, so…” Steve scratched a hand through the light stubble that had grown along his jaw since the start of his current mission. 

“So, what if Fury’s right, Stark knows he’s made, and we’re all just playing the long game?” Sam finished, more statement despite his questioning end. 

Tony was leaning forward, his hands --those hands that Steve had drawn too many times to count-- gripped the edges of the podium. The crowd was quiet, hanging onto his every word. A woman’s poster sagged forward, covering part of Tony’s name and leaving only half a heart visible. Even the news scroll had stilled, affectionately reading: _Tony Stark: America’s Mistress_.

 _“The truth is… The truth,”_ Tony said with a humorless laugh, _“It’s strange to hear that from a candidate, isn’t it? But I stand up here now, and I’m giving it to you now, regardless of the consequences. My parents didn’t die in a car accident twenty years ago.”_

Shock rippled visibly through the crowd, confusion rising in tides and murmurs as Tony looked gravely from the crowd to directly at the camera. For just a moment, Steve felt Tony was looking solely at him. His gaze was dark and solemn, decisive.

_“My father loved my mother more than anything else in this world. He would never have risked her life driving drunk. The truth is that they were murdered by the government.”_

The announcement threw the crowd into an uproar while Tony looked on grimly. Steve saw Sam down another shot and sit down heavily, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. Steve couldn’t agree more; if Tony was right about Pierce, then revealing the nature of their deaths was nothing short of his own death sentence.

“If this is the long game, then I need to decide if how I feel about him is worth more than what he’s done,” Steve finally answered, quiet but firm.

“We’ve gone over everything more than once. Even you had to agree that Iron Man wasn’t responsible for half the shit they’ve said.” Sam put his hand up for another round, and Steve briefly considered asking for something weaker before Sam passed out on the floor, but he just let it go. 

“I agreed that he might not have been,” Steve corrected, “but I… He’s still killed people, Sam.”

“And we haven’t?”

“... Fuck…” Steve rubbed a hand over his face.

_“They were murdered by the government. Silenced! Silenced because they, too, had stood up against those that would rule over us instead of guiding us, helping us grow and become what this country needs to be great. And I used to think that I could bear the burden of this truth alone, that I didn’t need anyone to help me. But I was wrong. Just like everyone else, I’ve needed love and support. I think… I hope that I’ve found that now.”_

Sam looked at Steve, brows raised pointedly. Steve wouldn’t look away from Tony.  
_“I refuse to be cowed any longer. If the government wants me to quit, wants to silence me like they silenced my parents, the very pioneers this world revered for their ingenuity and advances, then they can come to me directly for the fight. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m ready for you.”_

The crowd was going wild again, the Russian reporter speaking quickly as cameras flashed and questions rang out over each other. One in particular caught Tony’s attention when he’d started for the end of the stage.

_“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”_

_“You’re so focused on taking down Pierce, but what about Iron Man? He’s a constant threat to national security, a mass murderer, a terrorist. Do you have any plans to focus on counteracting his terrorism?”_

Steve’s heart thumped once at the expression that washed over Tony’s face. It was fury and pain, and then it was a mask. A perfect shift that hid him from everyone who didn’t know any better. Steve knew better, and he hated that facade. 

_“We’ve all seen the movies. You take down the mothership, the rest follow. It’s the same with the final boss. You take him down, the rest will follow.”_

The feed cut back to the studio reporters and Sam laughed. There was a note of incredulity in the sound. 

“You sure know how to pick ‘em, Rogers,” Sam said, turning on his stool to face Steve, “Potential brainwashed best friend from the 30’s running around like a ghost --which, thanks for the invite to the coldest place in December by the way-- and now… Now, you have a potential supervillain boyfriend that’s practically throwing down the- He’s throwing down the gauntlet! To Pierce!

Whether he’s that tin can or not, he’s gonna need your help or he’s going to be a smear of red on the pavement either way.”

“God, you’re a real comfort, Wilson, you know that?” Steve rolled his eyes and slapped down a wad of Russian currency. “Daruĭte, vsya plyashka. Budʹ laska.”

“To happy endings,” Sam quipped, toasting the bottle the bartender brought as Steve could only offer a laugh in return before draining his shot and smacking the glass down to the bar.

“Bud’mo!”

~~  
Iron Man’s right palm shot out, firing explosive flares as he banked sharply down and to the left. He forced himself to fly faster and barely rolled to the side in time to avoid the missile that was aimed his way. 

“Crossbones has caught up, sir,” Jarvis said helpfully. 

“Thanks, J,” Tony ground out, not even paying attention to where the missile exploded behind him. He banked to the left again, leading the fake armor behind him on a merry chase around the water’s edge of The Port Authority, “How much longer until the dead zone is ready?”

“The last sequence has one minute and thirty seconds,” Jarvis answered, “May I suggest engaging Crossbones before he reaches the square?”

“I’m wor-” A hand closed around Iron Man’s ankle, attempting to throw him off course, but Tony cut the power to his thrusters and dropped back to twist and punch the imposter in the center of the faceplate. The hit rang hollow --as Tony expected it would-- and the fake armor fell back, dropping out of its flight and releasing Iron Man as it went. 

Tony wasted no time reengaging his thrusters and taking off for the heavily-armed man gunning down the Bayonne security guards. As one of the bodies tumbled down the stone steps, panels on Iron Man’s thighs opened, firing three miniature missiles from each leg that all locked on Crossbones’ location. He pulled himself in tight and shot down after the missiles. 

Crossbones took one missile out with a well-aimed shot as he ran for cover, darting around the ground to try and avoid the others as they struck. Concrete and dirt exploded around him, obscuring Iron Man’s vision before he burst through the smoke to find Crossbones standing his ground with the smoking remains of the other missiles lying around him. 

The flames engulfing Crossbones’ head brought Iron Man up short. He cut power to his repulsors, dropping to the ground and bringing his hands up to fire just as Crossbones shot a beam from his face. 

“Jarvis?!” Tony shouted as the two beams of energy connected and shockwaved out with enough unforgiving force to rip apart the GCT terminal. In a corner of his HUD, Tony saw the body count rise, but it was dismissed, shunted to the side under the push forward to slam into Crossbones. He staggered down to a knee as Crossbones flew backwards into a crumbled pile of metal containers. 

“The dead zone is now activated. Cordoning both Crossbones and the imposter inside the square will render them inactive.” Jarvis illuminated the square, a mere twenty feet or so away from where Crossbone was pushing himself out of the rubble. The mask he’d been wearing was burnt away, revealing a heavily scarred face with tendrils of smoke wafting up and away into the smoke still in the air. 

“What… is he?” Tony breathed. 

“Scans indicate inorganic materials within a restructured genetic sequence,” Jarvis replied.

“Get that data scanned and to Victor,” Tony snapped, even though they hadn’t spoken since Tony’s ridiculous accusation. He started to push himself up to his feet, but found himself frozen at the sensation of a body pressed along the back of his suit. 

“There’s no need for such dramatics, Iron Man,” a smooth voice said through Iron Man’s speakers, or maybe it was just in Tony’s head. God, he hated magic, “What he is isn’t important. He’s another stepping stone in your quest for revenge.”

Tony’s throat worked as he tried to speak, to move. He felt the sweat of battle and nerves roll down his neck and drip down his spine. Fear… He could taste fear in the back of his throat.

“Your enemy possesses great strength, a strength that does not belong to him, to any human. I wonder if you’ll be strong enough to stop him destroying your world.”

“Who are you?” Tony growled. That voice laughed, a caress that left Tony shivering with sick premonition. 

“I’m the cloying, pervasive itch in the air, the chaos beneath your skin. I’m the magic behind the mask, and that’s all you need to know for now. We’ll meet again soon enough, but do duck down, or you might lose your head.”

The presence disappeared, taking the fake suit of armor with it and jarring Tony forward. He stumbled as the world rushed back into motion. He could hear Steve suddenly, yelling out orders for him to stop, and barely had time to hear the incoming whistle before he was bending backwards to avoid the shield that cut through the air above him. He fired a repulsor at the ground, spinning himself to the side and back into flight, skimming the ground to avoid the rebound of the shield.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Tony spat, hoping to get to Crossbones before Captain America could interfere too much. It was in vain as the Captain’s weight landed on his legs. They hit the ground and Iron Man couldn’t correct his pattern before Captain America rolled off and grabbed him up by both legs. His suit screeched along the ground as Tony tried to twist around to fire across the Captain’s hands. 

“Sir!” Jarvis exclaimed and Tony looked around to see Crossbones finally staggering towards his dropped weaponry. 

“No!” Tony yelled, the sound mechanical as it came from the suit’s mouthpiece. Foregoing trying to wrestle his way out of the Captain’s ironlike grip, Tony simply flung one hand back towards the Captain and fired at first one shoulder then the other. The first was ducked, the second taken directly to the Captain’s shoulder. The Captain’s hold loosened just enough for Iron Man to fire a boot’s repulsor into the Captain’s side to push off of him towards Crossbones. 

But the Captain’s grip had crushed part of the flight mechanics in the suit’s left leg, sending Tony off course enough that he had to resort to firing at Crossbones from a distance. 

“I’m so tired of your interruptions, Iron Man, but we’ll be done with you soon enough,” Crossbones taunted, kicking up a slab of concrete to block Iron Man’s beam. He took aim at Iron Man, fired a grenade and turned to run towards the approaching boat that was speeding towards the shore. 

Iron Man kicked the grenade as the projection on his HUD directed, but he wasn’t counting on Captain America interfering again right away. The Captain slammed his shield down over the grenade, glaring at Iron Man as the explosion rocked them both. 

Iron Man brushed it off, letting his shaky flight controls take over as he went after Crossbones. His window was closing and he’d been so close. He had been so close. 

“Enough!” The Captain ran, intersecting Iron Man’s path and slamming him into the ground. 

“Crossbones has made it onto the boat,” Jarvis said, “and Dr. Doom is not responding.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Iron Man seethed at the Captain as he strained to get the suit back to its feet. Tony was barely able to rein in his fury.

“I’m stopping you,” the Captain ground out and Iron Man threw his head forward into the Captain’s, using a palm against his chest to help shoot the Captain away. 

“SHIELD strike teams incoming,” Jarvis announced. “You have approximately one minute.”

He watched the Captain -- _Steve_ \-- climb to his feet, but he couldn’t stop the rage, teeth bared inside the suit. He wanted to scream, but instead, he fired everything he had left in the suit. He didn’t wait to see the ground collapse under the Captain’s feet, or the debris from the previous explosions fall into the crater after him. 

Iron Man kicked off into the air, hurling himself after the disappearing boat on the horizon and leaving his heart behind on the Port. 

~~

 

It took until well into the evening for Tony to outfly his anger at Crossbones getting away, at the imposter for being able to scare him, and… Well, for the fact that he’d intentionally fought against Steve, regardless that Steve didn’t know. He’d watched the news on his flight back from where he’d lost Crossbones past Bermuda and hadn’t missed the careful way Steve had held himself while directing cleanup. He certainly hadn’t missed the darkened spread of blood beneath the Captain America uniform, nor the tight expression around Steve’s eyes even beneath the cowl. 

Iron Man had done that. Not the imposter or Crossbones, but Iron Man. He’d hurt Captain America. Tony had hurt Steve. That knowledge was a pit in Tony’s stomach, a gnawing guilt as he stood outside the apartment complex where Steve lived. The bracelet containing his suit’s signal was heavy on his wrist as he lifted his hand to press Steve’s buzzer. 

A woman passed by on the sidewalk and Tony had enough time to admire the style of her pumps before Steve’s voice answered with a gruff “Yeah?”

Tony hesitated then stepped in closer and pressed the button again to say: “It’s me; may I come up?”

There was silence again after Tony let go of the button, a silence that felt even heavier than Tony’s bracelet. The entry buzz finally sounded and Tony slipped into the foyer of the apartment complex. He rubbed his hands nervously for a moment before striding for the elevator and riding it up to Steve’s floor. The hallway was quiet when the doors opened, the soft tread of Tony’s step barely making a sound. 

Still, and Tony wasn’t surprised by this, Steve opened his door before Tony could even lift his hand to knock. Neither of them greeted the other as Tony took in the sight of Steve in the doorway. His body was stiff, his hand tight on the door near the top of the frame. Pale except for two splotches of red high in his cheeks, he looked tired and in pain. Tony’s gut clenched. 

“I tried calling,” Tony heard himself say, very aware that Steve was still quiet, still in the doorway. He’d dressed in loose sweats and a shirt dark enough to hide any evidence of injuries, but Tony had already seen them. “SHIELD said you’d come home, so I was worried when you didn’t answer. Is-”

“I lost my phone,” Steve interrupted, “It’s probably at the bottom of the Atlantic.” He dropped his hand from the edge of the door. It dragged a little along the wood, a small detail Tony couldn’t help but notice. He bit his bottom lip and fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve. 

“Oh, that’s… I probably have a spare in the car,” Tony hedged, hooking a thumb back towards the elevator. He laughed slightly, “I’ve always got that crap lying around, you know.”

He looked up at Steve and sighed, shoulders slumping under his black winter coat. 

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You are, right? Okay, I mean.” But Steve’s expression was off, almost distant, and Tony’s senses were starting to pick up into protective instincts. “I-I won’t ask to come in, because you should rest, but-”

“Tony,” Steve cut him off again and stepped back to open the door wider. When Tony didn’t move right away, Steve’s expression softened. “If I had my phone, I would’ve called you anyway. Please, come in.”

Against his better judgement and those instincts stirring, Tony stepped past Steve into the living room where the television was playing the news and the kitchen’s light illuminated the back of the couch. He turned towards the kitchen, observing the dark cloth on the floor and the table covered in strips of gauze and tape. 

“Steve?” Tony breathed, moving onto the linoleum and careful of the drop cloth that he could then see held the bloody remains of Steve’s uniform. “Jesus, should- Are you sure it’s my help you need and not the SHIELD doctors?”

“I don’t go to them anymore,” Steve replied, following Tony into the kitchen. When Tony turned to look at him, Steve was gingerly pulling his shirt over his head. Tony had to grip the back of the chair at the table. Steve’s entire left side and across his stomach were mottled in bruises already so dark that Tony could barely see the blood around the puncture wound in Steve’s gut. 

“Steve,” Tony repeated, and it sounded a little wet and worried. He shook himself and stepped forward to guide Steve into his seat. “Why don’t you go? Are you even sure this is healing? What do you need me to do?”

“First, I need you to calm down,” Steve replied, touching Tony’s chin briefly. Tony met his gaze and held it until he breathed out slowly. Satisfied, Steve dropped his hand, leaning back in the chair. “Second, it’s healing, but it’s going slowly. Probably because the rebar that got me was rusted.”

“Rebar…” Tony stepped between Steve’s legs to hold Steve’s head to his chest, fingers brushing through his blond hair. “Rusted rebar… Fucking Christ...”

Steve didn’t try to pull away, but he left his arms on his thighs, his hands hanging between his knees. His breath was hot on Tony’s stomach through his shirt as he sighed. 

“I don’t go because those doctors are never in a hurry to get me patched up.” He stopped there as Tony’s hands tightened in his hair. Tony was staring ahead at the fridge, not seeing it as he absorbed Steve’s words. Quietly, one of Steve’s palms pressed against Tony’s hip. “I’m gonna be fine, Tony.”

“What do they do?” Tony asked instead of acknowledging Steve’s last statement. Anger surged through his veins as he anticipated Steve’s answer. “The doctors, what do they do?”

Steve pulled back then, despite Tony’s attempt to keep him close, and brought Tony’s hands down from his head. Tony watched him stare at his hands, thumbs swiping over Tony’s callouses. 

“Sometimes they want to do tests,” Steve said with a shrug, “Which, yeah, I can see why, but when they want to make the injuries worse just to s-”

“They what?!” Tony exclaimed, heart pounding in his ears. His vision swam with it, and all he wanted to do was to fly to SHIELD then and kill them all. Steve’s lips pressed against Tony’s fist, drawing his attention. 

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” Steve promised against Tony’s fingers. “I don’t go anymore unless I really have to. This, this isn’t one of those times, but I could use your help bandaging it.”

Tony’s expression must still have been murderous, because Steve straightened a little more and lifted his hands to draw Tony down into a soft kiss. 

“Tony,” he murmured, sliding his fingers into Tony’s hair, “Tony, please. I’m fine.”

Tony pressed their foreheads together, eyes squeezing shut. This was all his fault, but he couldn’t apologize for it, couldn’t tell Steve that he hadn’t really meant to hurt him; he’d just been so angry. He startled at the thought, drawing back as he realized he’d heard that excuse a long time ago from a man he’d once trusted. 

“Tony?” Steve asked slowly. 

“I’m sorry,” Tony said quickly. He shook himself and took a deep breath to let it out after a moment. He brushed Steve’s hair from his forehead. “I’m sorry that you’ve been through this. You should’ve said something sooner.”

Steve raised his brows then huffed in amusement, giving Tony a sly expression.

“Going to be my knight in shining armor, Mr. Stark?”

“Someone needs to be,” Tony replied, moving away to shrug out of his coat. He threw it over the back of the couch and returned to Steve, rolling up his sleeves. He could do this without freaking out anymore; he was determined to be steady. 

“I have faith that you’ll take excellent care of me,” Steve said quietly and Tony searched Steve’s face before touching his cheek briefly. 

“I will,” Tony promised, “Walk me through what you want done.”

Following Steve’s instructions and being sure to check everything more than once, it took an hour and a half before Tony was satisfied that Steve’s guts were going to stay exactly where they belonged: in his body. He was drying his hands by the sink when Steve’s arms slid around his waist, followed by the gentle press of Steve’s front against his back. His libido was instantly on board for Steve’s warmth, but Tony tamped it down. 

“Thank you,” Steve said, kissing the back of Tony’s neck, arms secure around his waist. 

“I’d say anytime, but honestly… Don’t get hurt again,” Tony said, feeling as old as his voice sounded tired. 

“I’d promise, but we know it’s the nature of the job,” Steve murmured and Tony felt his lips slide against his neck. He dropped his head forward and heard Steve hum in approval. He pressed his hands to the counter and prepared to gently extricate himself from Steve’s embrace. 

He couldn’t, in the shred of good conscience he had left, let himself sleep with Steve when he couldn’t give Steve all of who he was. Even just thinking about it made Tony’s stomach roll. Before Steve, Tony could’ve fucked his way through the entire populace of New York and beyond. 

Before Steve.

Rogers. Steve. Love. Guilt. Heavy, obliterating guilt. 

He turned just as Steve’s palms slid up his stomach so they ended up on Tony’s back. Tony tipped his head back a little and kept the scowl from his face from practice. He covered Steve’s arms and traced the muscles there. 

“You should stay-”

“I should get going…” Tony trailed off as they spoke at the same time. For a moment, something passed over Steve’s expression that Tony couldn’t quite decipher because it was quickly overtaken by a cautious determination. Tony had to cut it off before Steve learned how easy it would be to convince him. “I don’t care how much you think you’re healing. I’m not going to risk exacerbating the problem. I’ll come by tomorrow with a new phone for you, and we’ll see how you’re feeling then.”

Steve’s eyes closed and he sighed, but he didn’t let Tony go. When he looked back at Tony, he tilted his head to the side and asked, in all seriousness: “Do you trust me, Tony?”

Tony blinked, saying with a frown: “Of course I do,” because that was true. Tony trusted Steve. It was Iron Man not trusting Captain America that was the main problem. It was Tony not trusting Captain America. 

Tony could deal with Steve breaking his heart, could deal with Steve proving himself to be just like everyone else. But he really couldn’t deal with losing his faith in superheroes, couldn’t lose his faith in the living legend who’s stubborn will would probably save the world one day when Tony wasn’t around to see it anymore. 

He slipped out from between Steve’s arms and smiled over his shoulder at him as he went for his coat. 

“I’ll be by in the morning,” he promised, walking towards the door as he pulled his coat on and buttoned the two middle buttons. 

“Tony,” Steve called, having not moved from where they’d been standing by the counter. His hands hung at his sides, fingers slightly curled. Tony licked his lips, his own hand on the doorknob. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

Tony, being the bastard coward that he was, fled with dignity, hearing Steve’s door click shut behind him.

~~

“I’m pretty sure you’re the one not getting it, buddy,” Frank Castle said from the left side of the room. He stood at the windows, barely looking at the others in the room and really only glaring at Iron Man when he did. “You’re killing just as many as you’re saving.”

“Why do you think I’m asking for help?” Iron Man said, modular tone leaning towards frustrated. “I’m an asshole, yeah, but I know when I can’t handle something on my own. And this, this I can’t handle anymore.”

“Your methods have been crude.” That statement came from the Scarlet Witch, beautiful and cold, where she perched on the end of the sole piece of furniture in the room. The table was only stable because she wanted it to be, and she’d definitely raised the temperature in the warehouse upon her arrival. She gave Tony chills, but Iron Man was rather fond of her in an ‘aww they grow up so fast’ sort of way. 

“You know what I’m capable of. If you have suggestions, then I’m all ears.”

“Are you?” Frank asked, “Because from where I see it, you’ve just been growing softer. I don’t think you got what it takes to take on Hydra anymore, and fucking forget Alexander Pierce. He’s not going down without taking the fucking East Coast with him, and I ain’t about to risk that because you got a hate boner for the guy.”

A hand was raised and Iron Man uncrossed his arms with a heavy sigh as he asked: “What, Bob?”

“Um, I was told there’d be food here?” 

Scarlet Witch actually smiled slightly and twisted to look at Hydra Bob at the other end of the table. 

“You’ve been so quiet, I almost forgot you were here.”

Hydra Bob looked a little nervous under the attention. He fidgeted slightly. 

“I was specifically told to listen to what Iron Man wanted. Deadpool was very firm in that before he got distracted.”

“Why isn’t he here? I could definitely use his help,” Iron Man pointed out. 

“He went on a date with Death.” Silence followed his words until Frank grunted. 

“This is pointless. Look, you keep going in hard, man, he’s going to keep fighting back just as hard. Trust me, I know. And if neither of you give a shit about the people you’re jerking around, then yeah. They’re gonna keep dying. Why don’t you just leave it to the heroes? Ain’t that what Captain America is for? Or is it a bit harder when he’s in the bad guy’s pocket?”

“Do you think that’s true?” Scarlet Witch asked, one leg swinging absently. “What a time to be in where the good guys are the bad and vice versa. Very exciting.”

“About that food? Do you at least have cookies?” Bob asked.

Iron Man paced away, suit clanking in its tread. If Tony could, he’d be rubbing his face. Three wasn’t exactly the turnout he’d been expecting. Things were much harder when he didn’t have Victor to extend the invitations. He felt a brief pang at the cooling of their friendship, but turned back around to face the others. 

“I’m not here to discuss Captain America. He’s interfered enough, and I lost Crossbones because of it. I’m asking for your help. When it’s time to confront Pierce, can I count on your help?”

Frank pushed away from the window with a grimace, rubbing a hand over his head. 

“Look, I ain’t sayin’ yes, but let me mull it over. There’s gotta be an easier way to go about this. I’ll be in touch about it, but you gotta stay away from those shipments of his. You’re only getting more people killed, and I know. You’re all about the ‘needs of the many’ or whatever shit you like to spout, but those people got families that ain’t ever seein’ them anymore, so if we do this, you’re gonna let those shipments go.”

Iron Man was quiet for a long moment then: “Fine,” he said, as Tony’s lip curled. He didn’t like letting Pierce ship those materials, but if that’s what it took to get Castle’s help… He could always ask Victor to keep a closer eye on them. If Victor chose to listen, and if he could depend on Castle to at least stick to his word.

“I, for one, couldn’t care less about Hydra, but I agree with Castle,” Scarlet Witch said, stepping lightly down from the tabletop. She smoothed her hands over her burgundy skirt. “You cannot allow him to bait you with these shipments. How many innocents died in the Port attack?”

Iron Man was silent, armor still as he looked at them. 

“The news said there were at least fifty bodies in the containers,” Hydra Bob helpfully informed, “not to mention the employees. Most of them were dissenters that had been previously reported missing.”

“Yes, thank you, Bob,” Iron Man said tightly, “I’m aware of the casualties.”

“Not to mention, you’ve got Captain America on your ass,” Frank said, “Are you going to try and get him on your side too? Because I’m pretty sure after you dropped the Port on him, he probably hates your guts.”

Scarlet Witch sucked her teeth briefly then strode to Iron Man’s side to press a hand to his chest plate. She gave him a considering look then said; “To go against Hydra is foolish with the force Pierce brings, but… I will speak to my brother. Perhaps we will stand with you, Iron Man, but I make no promises.”

“All I can ask is that you consider it,” Iron Man replied, head turning towards her. “And I do ask, Scarlet. That you even came…”

She smiled. “I know. I am sorry that no one else answered your call, but Hydra is formidable. I’m not surprised.” She patted Iron Man’s chest and turned to Frank as he approached. 

“I’ll be in touch.” Frank gave Iron Man a nod, holding a hand towards the door. “It’s gotten pretty icy out, so I’ll take you to your motel.”

“Excellent,” Scarlet Witch answered, buttoning up her coat. She pulled up her hood, fluffing it over her curls. “Goodbye, Iron Man. We will speak soon.”

Scarlet Witch walked out of the warehouse with Frank right behind her. He wasn’t quite holding a hand against her lower back, but it was close. When the door shut behind them, Iron Man sighed heavily and began to relax. 

“So, is that a no on the cookies?”

“Go home, Bob. Tell Deadpool I’ll be in touch again,” Iron Man said shortly, striding for the door next. 

“Right, of course! Fly carefully!” 

Tony rolled his eyes behind his faceplate, but opened the door and flew off into the night and the wintry mix. He didn’t have too far to fly in it, having parked his car in the next town over. By the time he came in for a quiet landing, his armor was coated in a thin sheet of sleet that was attempting to ice over. But Jarvis retracted the suit quickly enough into its travel-size case and Tony tossed it into the passenger seat. 

He pressed his head back against his seat for a long moment, eyes closed as he tried to find some semblance of calm. After that, he took off his bracelet and dropped them in the cupholder. His phone caught his attention and he swallowed the immediate lump in his throat. 

He wanted to see if Steve had texted him, but the texts had stopped a week ago, a week after the missed phone calls. He rubbed his chest and started the car, pulling out onto the road. 

“Would you like your updates, sir, or would you prefer to concentrate on the road?” Jarvis asked as the windshield HUD flickered on. 

“Turn it off,” Tony said tiredly, “I’ll deal with it all tomorrow. Any word from Victor? Or anyone else that didn’t show up tonight?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Fuck,” Tony breathed, hands squeezing the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and creaking. “Just… Send him another message about the shipments.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I respond to an-”

“No. No, we’re done there, so just… I don’t know. Archive Steve’s messages.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis answered. He went quiet and Tony turned the radio on, choosing soft classical instead of his rock that he normally would. He wasn’t in a loud sort of mood and Tchaikovsky was doing wonders for his stress level. 

So at least Tony was relaxed when the truck rammed into him from behind on the overpass. His car spun on the slick road as the airbag deployed. He felt his thumb break under the impact and then the truck hit again, t-boning him on the driver side. Screeching metal rent the air and his car crashed into the concrete barrier, hitting it at just the right angle to arc up and over the barrier as it flipped. 

It felt like forever to Tony until the car smashed into the road below, landing on its hood and jarring every part --broken or not-- of his body. By the time it settled into a rocking motion, he’d blacked out. 

The world returned in muffled sounds and flashes of lights from the dashboard of Tony’s car. He flinched as sparks landed against his skin. The movement brought screaming pain into awareness and he coughed once through the smoke wafting in from the engine. He fumbled for the door, cursing at the sharp twinge in his broken thumb, and felt the crumpled in remains of the driver side. He cautiously turned his head and coughed again, taking stock of his position. 

On his back on the roof of his car, everything loose had been scattered around. His suit’s case wasn’t among them, but the windows had been shattered out, so it could’ve fallen out in the fall. 

“J-Jarvis?”

There was no response, so Tony twisted to see if he could get out on the passenger side. He reached for the passenger seat to pull himself across the car. There was too much pain to focus on what might have been broken, but when he coughed again, the back of his hand was covered in red. He grimaced, forcing back another cough and clawed his way out of his trashed car. 

Once he cleared the window, he pushed himself up on his hands. That was when the crunch of gravel got his attention as his hearing returned. It was a split second too late as a boot slammed into his side sending him sprawling past the car against the pavement. He gasped out, blood staining his mouth as he struggled to get off the ground. 

“What a shame,” Crossbones said as Tony’s leg buckled under his weight and sent him sprawling again. He couldn’t see properly, the darkness of the night and the disorientation from the wreck making it difficult to focus. “Here I thought I wouldn’t get a chance at you alone this soon. You’re either always with Rogers or in your armor. Imagine my delight when I see you out of your suit in such a deserted place. Not very smart of you, Stark.”

Tony didn’t respond, only really catching about every third word or so. He tried to get up again, but Crossbones’ heavy boot came down on his leg and left him gasping in blinding pain. 

“I warned you, Stark, that we’d be done with you soon enough. You didn’t think I was lying, did you?” Crossbones dug his heel into the back of Tony’s knee then knelt down with his own knee pressed into Tony’s back. His gloved fingers slipped through Tony’s hair; the strands felt slick against his head and he guessed he had a head wound to top it all off. 

Crossbones leant down, dragging Tony’s head up as he pressed his mouth to Tony’s ear to say in a rough attempt at a purr; “Or what, did you really think we didn’t know who you were behind that mask? God, you’re pretty pitiful without that thing. Bet you couldn’t even fight back without it.”

Tony had had a sinking feeling Pierce had figured it out a while ago. After all, he knew Tony just about as well as everyone else. Unfortunately, better than some others too. He choked as Crossbones gripped his throat with his other hand, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see a sheath strapped to Crossbones’ thigh. If he could just get his weight to balance properly, he could get a hand up to grab the blade. 

“You-”

“Don’t think so,” Crossbones cut him off, dragging Tony up by the throat until they were upright and Tony’s feet weren’t touching the ground. All the blood rushed downward to his knee and leg until Tony felt dizzy with agony. Instinctively, he grabbed at Crossbones’ arm, trying to free himself from his grip. 

Crossbones walked easily with him towards the smoking remains of his car, and with a laugh, mused aloud; “I’m really not interested in anything you have to say.” He tossed Tony down and kicked him into the car, “So why don’t you just be a good boy and bring Daddy your armor.”

Over Tony’s dead body. 

Which would mostly likely occur if he couldn’t get the stop bleeding everywhere. If Crossbones didn’t kill him first. He blinked dazedly up at Crossbones, tipping his head back against the car’s fender. 

“Yeah…” Tony croaked, “That’s going to be a no from me.”

Crossbones sighed like it was the biggest hassle and pulled forward a large shotgun that had been strapped to his back. 

“You might want to rethink those words, Stark,” he warned, cocking the shotgun with one hand. Tony thought he might vomit rather than rethink any words, but just as Crossbones aimed the gun at him, an arrow appeared with alarming silence in Crossbones’ shoulder. It stuck out of his body armor like a garish attachment. 

Tony nearly wept in relief, slumping against the car as Crossbones’ attention was drawn away. His vision wavered and he did have to roll slightly to the side to retch as nausea swept through him. He heard Crossbones curse and the sounds of more arrows embedding themselves in the ground. 

Like a shadow, someone landed in the flickering light of the fire from Tony’s car. They circled Crossbones and leapt at him with dual blades. They were fast, dodging in and out of Crossbones’ range and finally knocking the shotgun away. It landed on the side of the road, sliding a bit in the wet grass. Tony turned towards it and began to crawl. 

Behind him, the fight continued, the dull thud of fists and grunts echoing around them. He didn’t dare lose focus to look over his shoulder to check, but he was pretty sure his savior had the upper hand, and he was pretty sure he recognized the yellow-trimmed costume. The arrows definitely helped. 

“Get back over here!” Crossbones growled, far too close for comfort. He grabbed Tony’s ankle and started to drag him back along the tarmac. Tony kicked out at him with his injured leg, struggling to find anything to free himself. It had about as much effect as hitting the man with a fucking feather. 

“Leave him alone,” and yeah, Tony knew that voice, struggling further when Crossbones grabbed his other leg as he kicked. Ronin appeared again, astride Crossbones back. The black and yellow mask hid his identity well, but Tony knew that recurve bow like the back of his hand. Seeing it in action was satisfying in a visceral way.

His legs smacked the ground when Crossbones let go and stumbled back, clawing at Ronin’s arms to free himself. His rough voice was a gurgle of breath as he fought, but Ronin was relentless, turning the bow to pull the custom Dacron tight across Crossbones’ throat. 

“You forgot one thing about bad guys like us,” Ronin hissed, “We got friends too, asshole.”

Tony grit his teeth and compelled his broken body towards the side of the road again, hauling himself to the shotgun. His hands were freezing, his entire body shivering in the cold since his business suit had definitely not been made for crawling around in the dead of winter. So his grip was numb when he fumbled the shotgun up and around. 

His aim was off, shaky like the rest of him, but the gun didn’t fire. Blood was starting to form on the bowstring and it was clear Ronin was going for the garrote, but Crossbones’ entire body shuddered and his head was engulfed in that same energy it had been the day of the Port attack. 

Ronin didn’t look like he was going to give up, and Tony rushed to get the heavy shotgun cocked properly. When Crossbones gave a loud roar of anger, the energy crackled and Ronin swore. 

“Hey, asshole!” Tony shouted, and was smugly satisfied when it managed to draw even the littlest of Crossbones’ attention, enough that his masked face turned towards Tony. Tony didn’t even waste time on a snappy one-liner, just fired the shotgun at as point-blank range as he could get. 

Crossbones’ head exploded just as Ronin vaulted backwards to avoid the splatter. The recoil from the shotgun had the butt of it slamming into Tony’s shoulder, but he honestly couldn’t have cared any less. As Crossbones’ body crumpled, so did Tony. He collapsed against the ground, the gun rolling away from his hand. 

He began to register every screaming nerve ending and shuddered, coughing wetly at the sky above him. He heard Ronin walk over, mostly because Ronin purposely made his steps audible. The end of the bow came into Tony’s field of vision, he hadn’t realized he’d turned his head, and Ronin crouched down, using the bow for balance. 

Tony blinked at him silently for a moment, then said, “You’re late.”

Ronin didn’t visibly react. He just replied with a sardonic, “You look like shit,” that got a pained, tired laugh out of Tony.

“You’re catching my bad side.”

“Strange; I didn’t think Tony Stark had a bad side.”

“Then I’m doing my job correctly.”

Ronin shrugged. “The masses are just dumb, blinded by Pierce’s accomplishments. It’s pretty obvious once you look at the big picture, plus I’ve seen what Hydra’s done.” 

Tony nodded and coughed again, curling up just a little. Ronin turned his head, looking down the length of Tony’s body. He used the end of his bow to prod Tony’s leg. Tony moaned haltingly, trying to draw the leg out of Ronin’s reach. 

“You okay there?” Ronin asked rhetorically. 

“Peachy, all things considered. You didn’t come to the meeting.” Tony reached up to wipe the sleet from his face, pausing a moment to look at the red on his fingers. 

“Three people do not a meeting make, Stark. There were a lot of people who didn’t show. Can you blame me?”

“Don’t call me that, _Barton_ ,” Tony bit out and Ronin was quiet for a moment then he pulled his mask off, letting it lie against his back.

“Touché. Doom wasn’t there.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Tony replied, tone warning Clint to let it go. He didn’t need reminding as he dropped his hand. 

“Right. I’m assuming no hospitals still… so am I calling someone else for you since you and the good doctor are on the outs?” 

Tony groaned, making a considering noise afterwards. “Anything visibly broken?”

“Looks like your left patella is making a bid for freedom,” Clint answered casually, prodding Tony’s leg again. 

“Shit,” Tony breathed out, “getting fancy with medical terms, are we?” 

“Fuck you, you want my help or not?” 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah. Do it.” 

“Bite on this,” Clint said, working Tony’s belt free from his pants.

“Ha, that’s what she said.”

“I changed my mind. Help yourself.”

“Oh my god, just do it!” Tony nearly shouted, quickly losing focus again. He barely registered Clint knocking the shotgun further out of Tony’s reach, then folding the belt in half before shoving it in Tony’s mouth. 

“Grip this.” 

He bit down then let Clint force his hands around the bow. He attempted to snicker and offered up another muffled, “That’s what she said,” at the same time as Clint fit his own hands around Tony’s calf and knee and popped the bone back into place. He valiantly tried not to scream, but he did black out again for at least a few seconds. 

“I don’t think you’re going to bleed to death in the next hour, but you’re going to need medical attention,” Clint said as Tony came around again. He dropped Tony’s phone onto his chest and got to his feet, taking his bow back from Tony’s limp hands. He pulled his mask back on, hiding his face once more before turning towards what was left of Crossbones.

“Hey,” Tony called out muzzily, “can you bake cookies?”

“What?” Clint glanced up, one hand around Crossbones’ ankle.

“It’s just…” Tony trailed off then came back to it, “Bob was lookin’ for some…”

“You’re an idiot. But yeah, I can.” It was clear from Ronin’s tone that he was rolling his eyes.

“Good. See you at the next meeting. We’ll be earning our Elderly badge.”

“Awesome, I’m a step ahead of the others then since I fixed your leg.” Ronin flashed him a thumbs up, beginning to slide Crossbones back towards the overpass. Tony figured Ronin would probably make his getaway with Crossbones’ truck.

“Really? Going with the leg and not saving my life?”

“Eh. That was easy. Making you scream was more satisfying.”

“I hate you, Barton,” Tony decided, trying to at least start to sit up, but he felt like none of the messages he was sending to his limbs were reaching their destinations.

“Call your boyfriend to come get you.” 

The night was almost too silent once Ronin was gone, hauling Crossbones’ body along with him and leaving Tony bleeding and pretty broken on the road. Such was their lives. He’d done far more than Tony would have ever expected, and it was a painful, bittersweet realization that there was another person out there that he might be able to trust. 

It took far too long for him to get his phone to light up, and even longer to find Victor’s number. It didn’t strike him as strange at the time that the digits looked wrong, but before the phone even finished connecting the call, he closed his eyes. The phone clattered to the ground beside him and he sunk into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is it, ChibiSquirt! I'm so sorry it took so long! I want to thank everyone who has been with me to the end of this journey. Thank you to everyone who helped, who cheerleaded, and my amazing artists. 
> 
> [Baneme](http://baneme-art.tumblr.com/) (cover art)  
> [Musicalluna](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com//) (amazing cheerleader and beta)  
> [tastes-like-coconut](https://tastes-like-coconut.tumblr.com//) (sexy scenes arts)

_I keep a close watch on this heart of mine_  
_I keep my eyes wide open all the time_  
_I keep the ends out for the tie that binds_  
_Because you're mine, I walk the line_ \- "I Walk The Line" by Halsey (cover for Johnny Cash)

~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~

“Weren’t you the one who thought keeping him around was a bad idea? I seem to remember you shoving the number of dead civilians in my face.”

“I don’t care. Cho drugged him to the gills anyway. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“You need to start caring, Rogers, because there’s no telling how he’ll react when he wakes up. We don’t know shit about his true personality. We only know what he’s chosen to show us. On both sides.” 

“You just don’t get it. He called me, Nick. He called me even though it risked everything. And yeah, it definitely backfired on him, but he still did it.”

“You’re letting your feelings blind you to the situation. He wasn’t the only one at the accident, and we both know it wasn’t a hit-and-run, so where’s the other person? A body? Anything!”

“He’s not even lucid! If you want to cuff him to the goddamn bed, then you’re going to have to move me to do it.”

“You’re a stubborn jackass, Captain, but fine. I’ll give you one shot to figure this out your way, but I’m telling you right now. The public won’t accept him like this. The second they find out he’s Iron Man, Stark’s name is as good as dead.”

“You knew that when you first started suspecting him, sir.”

“Yeah, and like a goddamn idiot I waited for proof. Now, countless more are dead and he’s as good as.”

“Is that all, sir?” 

“Yeah, that’s all. You got one shot and then it’s my turn.”

A door slammed shut as Tony tried to break through the haze of disorientation, feeling like his limbs were weighted down, like his head was in the clouds with a wet towel wrapped around it. There had been voices around him, but he couldn’t make sense out of the words. He thought he reached out at one point, but nothing reached back. 

~~

There was a mask over his face when awareness tried to take control again. It pumped fresh oxygen into him, leaving him lightheaded. His vision swam as he turned his head towards the noise beside him. There was a woman there, dark-haired with glasses. She was holding a folder, and when he tried to lift a hand to the mask covering his face, she glanced at him and the rattle of metal connecting his wrist to the bed frame. 

She frowned as his heart began to beat faster, too fast. He was restrained in a bed with machines. He had to get free. If Pierce found him like that, he’d be a dead man with no chance to fight. He pulled at the cuff, yanked at it like a baby grasping at a toy. The woman backed up once, mouth moving. Her words came to him from a tunnel, muffled and indistinct, spoken to a shadow in his peripheral.

“It’s fine. Put the gun down before I report you to the Captain!” Then, she turned and adjusted a valve on one of the IV bags hanging beside his bed. He wanted to yell, to object. He couldn’t handle drugs and absolutely loathed not having control of his mind, but he couldn’t do anything as they swept him into unconsciousness again to the too-fast beeping of the tachycardia monitor. 

~~

The next time Tony woke up, the mask was gone and so were the cuffs. He wondered if he’d dreamed the whole experience, but the empty IV stand just on the edge of his view proved that wrong. Beyond that, Steve’s broad back blocked the view from the window. Tony’s throat tightened at the sight and he tried to sit up, feeling far too vulnerable lying down.

“Take it slow,” Steve said without turning around, without enough inflection for Tony to get a read on his mood. He could probably guess, though, and it started with a ‘p’. “You’ve been sedated for four days.”

“Four?” Tony’s voiced cracked on the word, rough from a dry throat. He obeyed, though, shifting himself slowly as he took stock of each tight pull of muscle. His left leg was thick beneath the blanket and a shift to the side let Tony know that it was wrapped in a cast.

“You were a mess when I found you,” Steve said, his profile a pensive expression from what Tony could see. He turned from the window and strode over to the table just out of Tony’s reach where a pitcher and a stack of paper cups were placed. He poured a cup and stepped up to the bed just close enough to hand over the cup without making Tony stretch for it. But he came no closer. “Do you remember what happened?”

Tony’s hand spasmed around the cup, the paper crinkling a little. He remembered everything. It wasn’t as if it had been the most traumatic experience he’d ever had, but the pain was still fresh in his mind with the very real belief that he’d been about to die in a ditch on the side of the road. 

Just like his parents.

His throat closed fully and he had to look away before he squeezed his eyes shut. The realization that it was Steve who’d come was a slow heat creeping up his neck. He’d called Steve instead of Victor, and he’d sealed his fate. There was no way Steve had arrived at the scene of the accident and not found-

A familiar weight landed at the foot of his bed, and when he looked, the expensive case holding the Iron Man armor stared back at him accusingly. It gave Steve’s accusing stare a run for its money. But beneath the accusation in Steve’s gaze lurked disappointment and the slant of his shoulders spoke volumes to resignation. 

“I asked you that day in the kitchen if you trusted me,” Steve said, “and you said yes.”

Tony prayed; he prayed hard in the span of a breath, knowing what was coming and knowing that he couldn’t give Steve what he wanted. 

“Tony, if that was true, then I need you to open this.”

_If that was true._

_**If** that was true._

_If that was true..._

Tony’s hand was wet from where it shook, the water in the cup spilling over the rim. Neither of them acknowledged it. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but at the same time, they choked him. 

_I can’t do that._

“It’s the only thing Jarvis won’t let me access,” Steve continued when Tony hesitated. “Of all the files, all the rooms, and your lab… This case is the only thing he refused me.”

Tony dragged his gaze up from the case to Steve’s face, another realization pouring acid through his veins, burning him alive. He watched the pedestal under Steve crack and crumble to dust, his trusting scattered to the winds.

“When?” he heard himself ask and Steve blinked, fingers resting on their tips on the case. 

“When what?”

“When did you go through my home?”

_Lietomelietomelietomelietome…_

Steve’s expression went tight then he sighed.

“When you had the flu, but your files before that,” he answered, “We’ve suspected you for a long time. Fury just wanted the proof.”

The flu. Tony had had the flu back near the beginning of their relationship. He crushed the cup. He’d been such an idiot. Castle was right; Tony had gone so soft from Steve’s boyish charm that he hadn’t even remembered his number one rule: never trust anyone. He’d thrown that rule out the goddamn window and had somehow allowed himself to not think about how this would all end. And now, now Tony’s secret was one unopened case away from being 100% proven true, and his heart was being ground to dust under Steve’s reinforced running shoe. 

“You used yourself against me,” Tony whispered, and he hadn’t meant to sound as betrayed as he felt. He was sure on some morality scale, he wasn’t allowed this feeling, but he couldn’t stop it. It swept over him in unceasing waves, stealing his hearing on every second pump of his heart. “You made me think-”

“The same thing you made me think,” Steve interrupted, words clipped and tone short. His hand had made a fist against the case. “Don’t pretend you’re offended when you lied for months to my face.”

“You tried to sleep with me.” Tony looked up at Steve again. “Knowing what you did, knowing the truth, and you still tried to sleep with me.”

“That’s what you’re upset about?” Steve scoffed and actually paced away from the bed before stalking back with a finger pointed at Tony. “You dropped a goddamn warehouse on me and you’re upset because I tried to get at least a good fuck out of it?”

Tony absolutely didn’t flinch at the bluntness of Steve’s words. His tongue was sharp as he spit his own venom. “That day in the kitchen, you’re right, you asked me if I trusted you, and I said yes. That was the truth then. I did, and fuck, it was so true. It was _so_ true. I could’ve told you everything you wanted to know, but instead of asking for the truth, you hid behind your own and you tried to… It wasn’t enough that you invaded my personal life, my work, and my home. You would’ve used me like you earned it for aggravated payment.”

Steve _did_ flinch, then rallied himself once more. 

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t have enjoyed yourself. Why do you think it was so easy to start dating you? Like I couldn’t read every thought playing in that twisted mind of yours the moment we met. You’ve got no ground here, so just open the goddamn case, Tony!”

He’d ended in a shout, and Tony blinked normally, feeling an eerie calm settle over his aching body. He turned a little, placing the ruined cup on the stand that was close enough for him to reach. 

“I can’t do that, Rogers,” he replied just as calmly. “I open that case and there’s no going back.”

Steve shook his head, muttering, “Goddamn it, Tony. There’s already no going back. All that’s left for you is a prison cell if you don’t even try to cooperate.” 

“You leave me in here, and I won’t make it to a prison cell. Pierce won’t risk leaving me alive,” Tony said flatly, choosing to split his attention between Steve’s rising frustration and feeling out the bandages around his head. He saw Steve’s gaze dart to his hands, and there was a moment where Tony thought Steve might reach out to pull his hands away, but he didn’t. 

Steve put a hand through his own hair.

“I’m not going to stand here listening to you put the blame on anyone but yourself. You put yourself here. And despite what you might think, we’re not going to let anyone just waltz in and kill you. So just tell me, are you going to cooperate and open the case or not?”

Tony put his hands in his lap, kept his fingers loose and relaxed as he answered, “Not.”

“Don’t do this, Tony. If you didn’t have a part of you that’d want to cooperate, then why did you even call me? Why me?”

Tony let out a huff of amusement, and that was definitely an honest feeling, because it was such a fucked up truth. “I didn’t mean to. I thought I was calling my partner.”

Steve’s expression lost all semblance of ‘Steve’, taking on the sterner lines of Captain America. 

“You’re making a mistake, but I think I’m done here. You’re not going to like what comes next.”

Tony let his press smile slide across his face for all that it hurt him physically. “You should’ve left me on the side of the road, Rogers.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s one thing you’re right about,” Steve growled. He took the case with him when he left. 

~~

“You’re out of your mind,” Tony scoffed. He shifted his weight, leaning more heavily on the cane in his grasp. Dr. Cho’s nanobytes were amazing, but his knee would still take a few more days to return to normal. He made sure to keep the bed between him and Fury, though Fury hadn’t moved from his position by the door since he’d entered, since he’d given Tony his supposed ultimatum.

“Probably,” agreed Fury blandly, “but it’s the only option you’ve got left. You say you can’t be in a cell or Pierce --the East Coast Director, mind you-- will have you killed because you know the ‘truth’. Oh, and he apparently killed your parents.”

Tony scowled and bit out, “I guess all private conversations weren’t so private either.” That hurt more than it should have, adding another layer of betrayal to the growing stack between him and Steve. 

Fury shrugged. 

“Maybe, maybe not. You start running for something like the Presidency and screaming about how the government killed your parents, others will start to put the puzzle together.”

“You don’t know as much as you think,” Tony said after a moment. 

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re up a shit creek, Stark.” Fury spread his arms. “Say hello to your paddle.”

“Paddles _are_ tools, so you got that part right.”

“I’m glad you can still find humor in your situation.”

Tony shook his head slowly in bemusement, turning to shuffle towards the window. He’d found himself standing there more and more, in the same spot he’d seen Steve standing in when he’d first woken up. He tried not to think too far into it. He smiled humorlessly at the glass, his reflection barely visible as he focused on the outside view. 

“I’m finding it hilarious, to be honest,” he said flatly, “You actually think I didn’t plan for this. There’s always been the chance that you’d find me out, Nick. You’re not an idiot. It’s just a shame your lawyers are.”

Fury frowned, but Tony kept going. 

“The moment you throw me to the wolves, every scrap of Stark tech holding this place together dissolves, assets and all. Ownership and control transfers to Ms. Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark International. I, personally, might be buried in the shit that’s left behind, but I’ll be damned if these people are deprived of the progressive technology they need to strive forward.

It just so happens that SHIELD and its affiliates will no longer have access to it. So go ahead, Nick, blackmail me all you want. Splash my name across the papers, but have fun crawling to Hammer to resupply everything SHIELD touches.”

“Page 321, subsection T, Clauses H through M regarding liquidated damages and indemnification obligations,” Fury said flatly.

Tony turned to look at Fury, leaning back against the windowsill before saying, “What do you want, Nick?”

“Despite what you might think, it’s not to see you behind bars, Tony,” Fury said, crossing his arms. “Like I said, I’m here to offer you a paddle, if you think you could handle sitting down with me for five minutes to discuss it.”

“Considering I can’t exactly run away at the moment,” Tony replied, gesturing to his leg. 

“Why don’t you put some real clothes on and we’ll go get something better than this crap they’re serving?”

Tony narrowed his eyes, but Fury held up a hand to hold him.

“I’m not trying to butter you up or whatever crazy idea just went through your head, so just cool your jets,” Fury smirked, “I just don’t like Taco Tuesday.”

~~

“This isn’t exactly what I pictured,” Tony said dryly, shifting on the booth cushion. He’d given it a wary once over before sitting down and sliding over. The bar they were in was clean enough, he supposed, most likely due to the early hour, but there was a staleness to the air that told the story of countless smokey nights filled with beer and food. 

“Not everything’s gotta be fancy, Stark,” Fury said, shelling a few peanuts then popping them into his mouth one by one, “Sometimes you gotta remember where the people are. Right here. At the bottom of all our fancy towers and high-tech buildings.”

Tony rolled his eyes, hooking his cane on the booth back. He unrolled his silverware and wiped the napkin across the table before crossing his arms. Fury looked amused. Well, as amused as he could look when he wasn’t a smiler. He opened his mouth to say something snarky, but a shadow fell over the table as a peppy server bounced up to the raised section of the booths and greeted them.

“Hi, good morning, folks! My name’s Candace, and I’ll be taking care of you this morning. May I start you off with water or something else to drink?” She smiled, but it wobbled a little as she clearly tried to stave off a yawn. She set a fresh basket of rolls on the table with a couple appetizer plates.

Fury grabbed another handful of peanuts. “Is it too early to get a margarita?”

Candace lost her battle with the yawn and turned slightly to hide it behind her arm. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. No, not at all. Jim just finished setting up the bar, so it should be fine. Did you want a water while you wait?”

“Sure, thanks. Lemon with it, please.”

“For you, sir?”

Tony pushed a hand through his hair, feeling suddenly very old and very worn out. The broken nose was throbbing and his bruised eyes felt puffy. He was sure he was a sight, but he’d deliberately not made eye contact with himself in the mirror. He’d stopped doing that years ago. 

“I’ll just have-” _Whiskey. The whole bottle. Keep it all coming._ Fury was watching him again, with a smirk that said he knew what Tony wanted to order. “-diet.”

“Diet Coke okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Okay, great. I’ll go put these in and when I come back, I’ll grab your orders.”

“Thanks, Candace,” Fury said, brushing the shells into his palm and dropping them on the plate she’d left on the table with the rolls. 

“This is the worst act of Good Cop and Bad Cop I’ve ever seen,” Tony said once she’d gone. He looked over Fury’s head to one of the rows of televisions. Only a few here and there were turned already, all on various channels, but the few closest to them were playing the news. One, in particular, was replaying the battle of the Port. Tony looked back to Fury. 

“It’s not an act, Tony,” Fury replied, “In fact, I don’t know what’s going on inside that man’s head right now. That’s between you and him. All I care about is you.”

Tony snorted. 

“Don’t interrupt me. I care about you and the _good_ I think you can do,” Fury continued, “Despite how you’ve attempted to handle things, you’ve been doing good keeping Hydra from getting their weapons where they want them to be. Granted, we’ve lost a lot along the way too.”

“It’s… It’s not only about the weapons, Nick,” Tony said, tapping a finger on the table in a slow pattern. “They’re taking the activists, the people… He’s selling them off or killing them when they get too loud or too close. I’m doing my best, but.” 

“But that’s what happens when someone doesn’t have the support they need,” Fury finished for him, “and that’s where we come in. I hope. I want you to work with us, Tony. And yes, that means Captain America too.”

Tony grimaced and leaned back as Candace came back with their drinks. She set them down then pulled out her notebook with a smile. Something on the closest television caught her attention, though, and she didn’t stop the scoff that came from her throat. 

“Typical.”

“Excuse me?” Tony asked. 

“The news’ always painting Iron Man like it’s all his fault. Clearly it’s not. It’s obvious he’s trying to stop even worse people, right? I mean, he saved my mom’s life in DC. If it hadn’t been for him, she’d have died at the airport, and everyone on that plane along with her.”

Fury raised his brows pointedly at Tony, who promptly scowled right back at him. 

“I mean, yeah, people’ve died, but they die everyday, and you don’t see anyone calling out the so-called heroes when they don’t save everyone. And what about the cops that-” She stopped there and rolled her eyes at herself, “Sorry. It’s just I have to listen to the same news reports over and over, and they can really start to wear a person down with all their negativity.”

“Believe me, darling, we both understand you very well,” Fury said with a soft laugh. Tony drew his gaze from the server to the television where he watched himself speak to a crowd that was waving signs of his name and face back at him. 

“What can I get for you, guys?” she asked, pen poised to paper. 

“I’ll take a sampler as my meal, just the one in the picture. Tony?”

“I’ll, um, just-” For some reason, he thought of Steve and he felt a fist around his heart, “I’ll just have a Ceasar Salad.”

“Great, I’ll put these in. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Sweet girl,” Fury said as she practically jogged away. 

“Sweet setup more like,” Tony countered. 

“You got me. Gotta go for the heart-punch, but that’s my point. You’re saving lives too, and you can act like a bad guy all you want, but we both know you’re not. Your revenge isn’t all about revenge. You’re trying to save this city at the same time. Just like we are.”  
“And what about Pierce?” Tony asked, sliding his soda across the table then back again in a set curving path. “I’m telling you right now that’s-”

“Don’t worry about Pierce. I’ve got my eye on him.”

“He knows who Iron Man is and he knows that I know he had my parents killed.”

“Is that what happened at the car accident?” Fury asked seriously, leaning forward now and pushing the bowl of peanuts out of the way. “It was the big guy, right? Crossbones? He got to you out of your suit, didn’t he?”

Tony’s jaw clenched for a moment, fear throbbing along the still-sore muscles of his body. “Yes, that’s what happened. He’s dead now.”

“Good. Guy was a pain in the ass,” Fury said, sitting back. “I think you’re looking at this all wrong, Tony. They’re supporting you overwhelmingly, your voters. The people don’t want Alexander Pierce anymore. They want Tony Stark. They’re holding you up as a pathway to a better system of government.”

“That’s… That’s not what I want. I’m not here to change the way everything’s run. I just want to expose the truth,” Tony said fiercely.

“Exposing Pierce as Hydra and that it’s at the helm of the East Coast? That’ll change everything, Tony. It’ll change across the country, not just here, not just the East Coast. I’m prepared for that, but are you? Truly?”

Tony put his head into his hands and scratched at his hair before coming back up on heavy sigh. 

“I don’t want to be their hero or their… whatever they’re painting Iron Man to be. I’ve done shitty things, Nick, in the name of getting to Pierce. This has been a long time building. I wasn’t… Pierce is my endgame. That’s all there is to it.”

Fury was silent for a long time, taking longer and longer sips at his margarita until he simply plucked the umbrella from the side and drained the glass. Tony listened to the ice clinking around, focusing on the bright colors of the umbrella. The glass came down onto the table and Fury was leaning in again. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that sounds like you weren’t planning on living to see the consequences,” he said flatly, almost accusingly if the one-eyed glare he was sending Tony could be heard. 

Tony straightened, meeting that glare head-on. “No, I’m prepared not to. If it comes to that.”

“You’re a goddamn idiot,” Fury muttered then laughed, rubbing hand over his head and eyeing Tony appraisingly. “Put on the suit. Fight alongside Captain America until I can get you to Pierce without a doubt in anyone’s mind. And I promise I will get you there, and I promise I’ll pull your dumb ass out of the fire before you go up in flames. And maybe, by the end of it, you’ll realize that taking the helmet off will be the best thing for this city.”

“And what does Captain America have to say about your offer?” Tony asked sardonically, “Pretty sure he hates me as much as I hate him.”

“Huh,” Fury said thoughtfully, and Candace appeared to deliver their food. She dropped off extra napkins, topped off Tony’s soda and left. “Is that what you young people call it these days?”

Tony just shook his head and picked up his fork to poke at the romaine. 

“Yes or no, Stark?” Fury asked, dipping a mozzarella stick in his marinara sauce, “I can only help you if you help me.”

Tony thought of the chasm splitting himself and Steve apart. He felt like he was standing on the edge of it, the wind tearing at his clothes. Between them was his suit and Pierce, and Tony didn’t have the heart to jump, because he was pretty sure there wouldn’t be anyone on the other side to catch him. In the end, he’d have to just step forward, let gravity take him instead. After all, that’s what he’d planned from the beginning.

What was one more broken heart along the way?

“Give me Pierce and we have a deal,” Tony said. 

~~

_Two weeks later…_

“That’s not possible,” Tony said staunchly, one hand smacking Fury’s desk, “Doombots aren’t in production anymore. I know this.” He’d been there, watched Victor shut the lab down himself. 

“It doesn’t matter what you think you know, Stark,” Fury replied, pushing away from the desk to stand and walk around it. “It only matters what my agents are reporting. Regardless of whether or not they’re actual Doombots, we’re going to take care of the threat.”

“Then I’m going too,” Tony said firmly. 

Fury paused and smirked. He held his hand out towards the door and said, smug and triumphant, “Be my guest. If you can get Captain Rogers to release your suit.”

Tony didn’t waste any time. Steve was on the airstrip and Tony knew Steve didn't let the armor case out of his sight. Tony ran as best he could with his still-healing knee, pushing past confused agents and a shouting Hill. He didn't have time to care about their damn rules. The reports had to be lying. There was no way Victor would... He needed to see for himself and to do that, he needed his armor. 

He burst out of the employee access door and out onto the airstrip. Steve had already been alerted to Tony's seeming bid for freedom, because he was striding across the strip in full uniform as an unknown redheaded agent took the case from him, heading in the opposite direction towards a jet. 

"You're not cleared to be out here, Stark," and that wasn't Steve -it hadn't been since Tony had woken up- it was clearly Captain America ordering him back inside the base.

"I don't care," Tony growled, barely slowing down as he watched the agent with the armor. Steve caught him by the bicep, and his grip jerked Tony back a couple steps. 

"I said stand down!" Steve spat, "If you think I'm letting you off this base to get to your boyfriend -yeah, I know about that too," he added grimly as Tony felt the shock pass over his expression. Good, let the man think he'd won this. 

"You don't know what you're talking about," Tony yanked once, in vain, against Steve's hand, certain that he would find bruises later. 

"Doctor Doom hasn't been seen for sometime, then you're detained and suddenly he's popping back up? Get back inside, Stark, before I carry you myself."

Tony looked over his shoulder and the unknown agent was walking up the ramp of the jet. He inhaled sharply, determined. All he needed was a head start. He whipped around and went up on his toes to grip Steve's face through the cowl and kiss him with everything he had. 

Unfortunately, it worked like a charm and Steve shoved Tony instinctively away. Tony stumbled from the force of it and was already turning on his heel as the mistake dawned on Steve. 

"Jarvis!" Tony shouted, running flat out along the strip. There was a brief moment where nothing happened before the agent in the jet cursed and Tony's case was shooting out of the jet.

"Stark!" Steve yelled and Tony knew he was close, but the case was falling apart as the armor burst out of it, called by the seemingly harmless bracelet they'd given back to him. The end of the airstrip was coming up fast and Tony was starting to feel the exhilaration of the chase. He wasn't going to make it. Steve was going to catch up. He could feel him shouting from just behind, and he twisted around briefly to shove his palm out. A pulse of energy waved out from his bracelet, and Steve just barely ducked behind a pallet of crates before the pulse rocked everything around him. 

Tony ducked around the last of the obstacles and heard Steve call out, but it wasn’t angry this time, only worried.

"Stark, wh-Tony!"

Tony flung himself off the airstrip into nothing but air and the far away sight of the city below. He counted back from ten, the adrenaline coursing through his system and battling the nausea of the height. By the time he hit four, the welcomed embrace of titanium alloy was locking into place around him. By the count of two, his repulsors fired up and Tony was banking sharply to the right to take flight in the direction given by the report.

The HUD fed in across the faceplate as Jarvis greeted him, “Welcome home, sir.”

~~

Before Tony even saw the Doombots, he heard their attacks. The whine of their hydraulics was only tempered by the proceeding explosions. Across the HUD, calculations began running for possible dead zones contingent on the Doombots’ location. A square formed in the upper right of Tony’s vision.

“They’re hitting the expressway?”

“Videos are beginning to hit the internet, sir. The Doombots are spreading out between 14th and 11th, and they’ve disabled the I78.”

“Casualties?” Tony asked as he boosted his thrusters and dove in low through Hamilton Park. 

“Yes, exact number undetermined. Survivors appear to be barricading themselves inside the Newport Center and emergency services cannot break the line to retrieve them. There are multiple officers down.”

Tony swore, low and vicious, and banked sharply to the right as a structural warning for the Holland Tunnel blared across the HUD. It brought him into the middle of the attack as he slammed down to the ground in the mouth of the tunnel and immediately destroyed two of the closest bots with a repulsor blast. In the next moment, his panels were opening to dispense his projectiles. Their ion trails glowed blue in the flickering lights of the tunnel as they pressed all along the collapsing concrete ceiling. Blue webbing spread out between them, their humming pitching higher as they all connected and drove upward as one to support the tunnel’s shape.

People began streaming out around the damaged vehicles blocking the way, dragging kids and dogs and belongings they didn’t truly need. There was blood and crying and a hell of a lot of screaming, but Tony turned his back on them just as a Doombot barreled into him from the side.

Tony killed one of his boots to twist himself around and drive a hand into the Doombot’s jetpack. It reared back, cutting its own momentum and slamming its metal foot into Tony’s armored gut with enough force to send Tony careening through the stone side of a nearby building. The wall crumbled, and he had to blast his way out from under the brick before he got buried. 

“Jarvis,” he growled, watching the bot that had thrown him. It seemed to watch Tony for a long moment before it was joined by four others and began to walk down the street towards him. 

“I am picking up no disturbances in the makeup of these Doombots. For all intents and purposes, they still scan as Doctor Doom himself. Perhaps if you were able to disable their psy-shielding.”

“Get messy, you mean,” Tony replied, stepping out of the ruins of what used to be the southside of a Staples store. 

“Precisely, sir,” Jarvis answered, “If you can make the time, a dead zone can be created stretching here and here.”

On the HUD, Tony eyed the rectangle forming between The Holland and the Home Depot. It was at least a block away and he still had to deal with the immediate threat of the five fighting Doombots just in front of him. 

“Make the time?”

“Captain America is inbound, trajectory states three minutes, but knowing him, it-”

“He’ll be here any second,” Tony finished dryly, shooting off the street to avoid three electric bolts aimed his way. “Right, start the sequences. I’ll do my best. And for fuck’s sake, route the other Doombots this way so emergency services can get through.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis replied then went silent as they both went to work. 

It wasn’t easy, rounding up the eight Doombots -and wasn’t that shit, that only eight of those bots were able to cause so many problems? Especially when the clock was ticking down faster and faster, and all Tony could think about was adamantly denying that Victor had anything to do with this. 

“Doctor Doom has not received your messages, sir,” Jarvis informed him through the fight, “and Doctor Banner is insisting only that they’re well. It would be interesting to note that Doctor Banner’s location is no longer Latveria.”

“File it,” Tony grunted as he was pile-driven into the ground. He latched onto the Doombot, kept hold of him atop the other struggling metal bodies. “Now, Jay!”

A second later, the EMP field launched. For a moment, Tony’s entire world blotted out, losing hearing and vision inside the suit. His heart seized, but only briefly, before his auxiliary power flickered on through the arc reactor. The mechanics in his suit were a bit stiffer in this mode, but it would have to suffice as he shifted clunkily off the deadened bodies of the bots. His joints whined and protested, but he managed to kneel beside the pile, uncaring of the scraping of his suit on the ground. 

He dragged the closest bot towards him and pried off the jetpack to get to the panel beneath it. He ripped into it and past the wiring, searching for something that would prove it wasn’t really from Victor. He would know. He would. 

“One minute, sir,” Jarvis warned, but Tony wasn’t listening. His vision had blurred and his body had frozen, stuck staring at the wires that were climbing up around his arms. They glowed a faint green, and Tony felt himself leaning forward, falling...

But he was already on the ground, wasn’t he? Then how was he still falling, falling forward, falling through the asphalt and then the world until he was suspended in an endless black. Still on his knees, he blinked frantically, trying to see something, anything that would make sense.

Then, he was staring at his hands pressed to the ground, but it wasn’t the ground, and they were his hands, but not. Not as they should be. He stared as the image of his gauntleted hands overlayed his younger hands. His stomach twisted up in knots and sweat dripped slowly down his back as his fingers slipped into vomit and blood. 

“Missy!” he called in dual tones, choking and desperate for help, needing to get out of the nightmare. It wasn’t Melissa that came to comfort him, though. The hand in his hair was too large, too strong. It stroked through his damp curls, tightening at the back of his head. He was crying, body struggling against the poison, and there was a soft, low hum before Steve’s easy smile came into view. 

“It’ll be over soon, Tony.”

“No!” Tony shouted as his younger self lost consciousness. The black pulled him in, left him suspended again, and he felt like he would throw up. He hated magic, loathed its power with a passion because he couldn’t fight it, never could even when he practiced with Victor. He was spinning, dizzy and disoriented.

“Get out of my head!” He curled in on himself, hands pressed to his ears, and the tears were leaving sticky trails down his cheeks. His breath shuddered hard through his lips and a gentle weight settled next to him on the bed. 

“So che è difiicile, Antonio,” his mother murmured. Her hand smoothed down the forming wrinkles in his black suit, “Mi mancherà anche Jarvis.”

Tony felt his tears increase until he was sobbing, chest heaving with his pain. “He left me, Mama. H-He said he wouldn’t e-ever and he-” He cut himself off, rolling over to throw himself into his mother’s lap. He buried his face against the expensive satin of her mourning gown and cried through his sorrow. 

Her hand continued to smooth down his back and she gently hummed to soothe him. Eventually, he was exhausted and he worried he’d crush his mother under the weight of his armor, but when he went to move, the arm around him clamped down, creaking Tony’s joints as the armor began to buckle. 

“You always hurt the ones you love, Tony,” Steve sighed patiently, amused, “We’ll always leave you.”

Tony felt the scream tear up his throat before it was echoing around him in the returned darkness. He lashed out, swinging and shooting wildly, trying anything to free himself. The screaming was hoarse and he was wrecking his voice, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t understand what the point was. Why? Why? 

“You want to know why, Tony? Because you’re soft!”

Tony flinched as Howard grabbed his chin roughly, forcing him to meet his father’s gaze. He was very aware of the other men sitting by his father’s desk, but he wouldn’t look that way. 

“Because I’ve given you everything you could ever need and you spit in my face. All you had to do was stay out of trouble for one weekend. One! One of the biggest goddamn deals of the new age, and you nearly fuck it up by-”

“Come on, Howard. He’s just a boy,” a smooth voice interrupted. Tony’s hackles raised instantly at Pierce’s voice, and he longed to yank away from Howard and run and run and never stop.

“Boys will be boys, right?” And that was Obie, and it was Tony’s worst nightmare, “He can’t help it that all the young girls want to get to know him. Look at that face! Even Stone wouldn’t resist that innocent face.”

Tony closed his eyes in dread and when Howard jerked his chin up, his eyes flew open to meet Steve’s thoughtful expression.

“I suppose he has a point,” Steve mused, turning Tony’s face one way then the other, “You might still be useful after all.”

The memory wouldn’t go any further than that. Tony had forcibly ripped that memory out of his head the first chance he’d gotten. He never wanted the reminder of the hands on him that night, but the nightmare was far from over.

He couldn’t scream anymore, his gauntlets screeching as they slid over his helmet and Victor was laughing as he tumbled to the ground; they were all laughing in overlapping waves. 

“Oh, Tony,” Steve said, crouching before him and lifting his chin up again. 

Tony couldn’t move, shuddering and stiff as he peered at Steve through the faceplate. He needed to get away, to protect himself, but he could only watch as Steve ripped the mask away and smiled just as gently.

“If there was only someone who loved you.” 

Tony felt his expression twist in rage, the snarl of hurt and betrayal well up to shred his already wrecked throat. He forced his hands forward to shoot Steve away, but he was shaking and being shaken. 

“You can’t trust anyone, Stark,” a voice whispered, and it was neither Howard nor Steve, but their mystery magic user, “You’re a good man, trying very hard to be strong in this worthless world. They’ll do nothing but ruin you, even the good Captain.”

“Tony!”

Tony ignored the call, feeling his gauntlets humming with power. He’d protect himself. He wouldn’t let them hurt him anymore. 

“Tony! Snap out of it!” 

A creak and a yank that pulled Tony forward, and then pain bloomed across his face and left him reeling as he blinked at the sudden sunlight. It was blue, so blue, and at the last moment, Tony managed to turn his palms away as the repulsors fired at a capacity they shouldn’t have been capable of. He hit the corner of the Home Depot and the parking lot of cars around it. 

The resulting explosion was massive, the force of it tearing through the few scattered trees. It slammed into them, though Tony could’ve sworn there was a shimmer of green in the push. Steve shoved himself in front of Tony, for the little good it did. The impact was strong enough that they both were thrown backwards. Steve hit a car on the other side of the road while Tony came to a stop a block and a half down.

The screaming then was not Tony, but civilians. Jarvis was in his ear, staticky and broken, worrying after his health and letting him know that SHIELD was on the scene now to maintain and contain. Which was good, because Tony felt like death inside the suit, pale and wet with fear and sweat. Everything hurt, but nothing more than his head. It pounded at the assault he’d been forced through, and it seemed too much an effort to pick himself up.

Luckily, Captain America had no problems with it. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he yelled, hauling Tony and the armor up off the ground. “Do you even know how many people you’ve killed? You could’ve… You could’ve killed us!”

Tony couldn’t even come up with a defense, trying his best not to just shrink away from Steve and any touch he might inflict. He saw his faceplate crumpled in Steve’s hand. 

“I’ll take that back,” Tony said, tone steady for all that he felt like he was underwater. “Or are you going to ruin it like everything else?”

Steve flinched, and that was something Tony would play over later, puzzled and defeated. He grabbed at the collar of the armor and dragged Tony forward. 

“If you don’t give a damn about hurting me, then at least think of the innocent kids that get caught in your crossfire.”

Because Steve allowed it, the other operatives were able to separate them when they arrived. Tony bared his lip at the realization as Fury stalked to stand between them. The redheaded agent from the airstrip stepped up slightly behind Steve, silent, and Tony dragged his gaze from her to Fury.

"Get your goddamn heads out of your asses and pay attention to what the fuck I'm saying to you. Like it or not, you two are on the same goddamn team now. You're going to work together and you’re gonna get along because I said so. Do I make myself clear?”

There was sullen, snarling silence as Tony glared murder right back at Steve. Fury made a sound of frustrated disgust. 

“Get them out of my sight."

"With all due respect, sir,” Steve said in an angry, measured tone, “he's not exactly teamwork material. He's going to get one of us killed, because he doesn't give a damn about the good guys."

"Show me one, and I might," Tony cracked back, tone whip-tight, as they started dragging him down the road towards the jet.

"You so-"

"That's enough!" Fury said, raising his voice. "Stark, you shut the fuck up. Captain, you go cool your head!"

"Yeah, _Cap_. Go cool your head; I hear ice baths are all the rage where you're from!"

Tony knew immediately that he'd gone one step too far, and as his helmet -he'd forgotten Steve still had it in his hand- slammed into his face after Steve threw it at him, he thought 'yeah, I kinda deserved that'. The ramp on the jet closed, taking away the sight of Steve's pinched and pale expression.

~~

Later that evening, Steve had finally finished filing his field report, having gone through three versions until he could objectively detail what had happened. He’d had to keep scratching out his anger at Tony and the fear he’d felt hearing Tony’s agonized screams and the terror in his expression when the faceplate had finally come free. He’d worked the worst of his reactions out on a few punching bags in the gym before the exhaustion finally pulled him out and into the elevator. 

He pressed the number for his floor then leaned back, resting his head against the wall and crossing his arms. Watching the numbers climb, he thought about the weight Tony had still carried long after they’d returned to the helicarrier. Through the glass windows of the lab, Tony had looked paranoid and distracted even as he’d gestured wildly between Agent Coulson and the litter of robot pieces they’d hauled back. He’d caught sight of Steve watching eventually and had turned his back, but not before Steve had seen his haunted gaze. 

He rubbed his own eyes as his sight went blurry, then just shut them with a heavy sigh, letting the gentle motion of the elevator lull him into a doze. 

“I was thinking sushi for dinner.” 

A warm weight was against his side and his fingers absently played with the ring on Tony’s left hand where it was tucked in the crook of his elbow. He smiled at the hint of amusement in his tone. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know Tony’s right hand was busy with his phone.

“Didn’t you have enough of it this afternoon?” His ring clicked against Tony’s. He hummed contently as Tony’s thumb swept up along the inside of his bicep. 

“Fighting with the overwhelming smell of shrimp in the air is not the same thing,” Tony replied archly, “In fact, I think it only encourages the consumption of seafood. We could order in, make a picnic of it.”

Steve frowned, but he didn't open his eyes. Fighting... Tony had been out there fighting... As Iron Man. He shoved himself away, across the small space of the elevator, anger descending like a red veil.

"What the hell?! I can't just pretend everything is okay, Tony!"

He couldn't miss the flash of surprise, then realization, then resignation. The phantom weight of a ring disappeared from Steve's hand as Tony rubbed his hand along his pants, and how did he even get out of his room? 

"Can't even find it in my-" but what Tony couldn't find, Steve didn't know and wouldn't know as he jerked suddenly as the elevator announced its arrival on his floor. He blinked his eyes open dazedly as the doors slid open. 

"Sweet dreams," he said to himself with a roll of his eyes. By the time he showered and fell into bed, he’d pushed the weird dream to the back of his thoughts. 

~~ 

The belt was tight, constricting. If Steve shifted too much, he could feel his muscles tense and tremble against the expensive leather that connected his biceps and stretched across his back. It creaked with each movement, each heave of his chest as he sucked in angry breath after angry breath. The ropes were another distraction altogether. Hooked to the belt wrapped around his throat, the main length of rope dragged at his head, arched his back, and attached him to the cane rod shoved behind his knees. 

He could easily snap them all, so why hadn't he? When he tried to even focus on the answer, it slipped away, just out of his grasp.

He tried not to think about how open and exposed it all made him, kneeling in the center of Tony’s lab. Though, he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten there so quickly from the Louvre Museum. The rod was thick and long enough to extend out a foot from either side of Steve and was secured to bolts in the floor via another set of ropes. The restraints bit into his skin, abrading but not bruising. 

“I don’t want to bruise you, Captain,” Tony said coolly, the voice mechanic, the tone ringing true despite it. “Bruises are personal, intimate. You haven’t even given in yet.”

 

Steve tracked Iron Man’s position from beneath the blindfold, listening to the solid, heavy step of the suit as it walked around him. His skin was damp, and it felt tacky under Tony’s inexorable gaze, but he tried not to pay attention to that either. It was harder to do that when a drop of sweat slid down the last dip of his stomach and over his pelvic bone, disappearing into the dark hair showcasing his cock. 

Like a beast summoned at the mere thought, a low buzz heralded a wave of stimulation that sent the muscles in his thighs and stomach jerking. The sensation rippled out to the rest of his limbs, but his restraints kept him locked in place, unable to shake out the jitters. It left him with no way to ease the tension except to give a low, growling whine that stayed trapped behind the gag clenched between his teeth. 

“You’re so very stubborn, Captain,” Tony mused. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m a little frustrated with our progress.” 

Steve wanted to laugh, incredulous with Iron Man’s audacity to claim frustration. The smooth, metal plug shifted inside of his ass as another wave of stimulation sent Steve shaking once more. He panted through his nose when it finished and felt more sweat bead up and slip back into his hair. He couldn’t care about that, though, as he was hyper-focused on the much smaller, thinner rod that was currently invading his dick. 

He felt split open around it, and he’d nearly cried out when Tony had delicately worked the rod into him. He’d bitten his tongue to prevent the noise, but he couldn’t stop the rutting of his hips the first time the rod had gone off. It spread wave after wave of electric stimulation that seemed to come from the very heart of his nervous system centered solely in his cock. 

Not expecting the strange sensation morphing into pleasure that sent his stomach swooping, he’d actually sobbed into his gag and gotten dizzy where he knelt. He had to force himself not to fuck into the feeling, each thrust earning him an answering thrust of the plug inside of him. The pulses of the e-stim rod were sporadic, turned on only from Tony’s whim, and the pace and duration of it varied. Slow. Fast. Staccato. On and off for almost an hour.

He thought he already climaxed once, humiliated by the thought of how easy he’d made it for Tony. Overwhelmed and blindsided, it felt like he'd exploded around the sounding rod within the first few minutes of stimulation without even realizing it. He could imagine the evidence, almost see his cum well up and spill out around the sleek rod as his cock twitched even further at the thought. 

But he was wrong, finding release was a privilege, a gift only bestowed by Tony should Steve earn it. Instead, he was driven to the edge over and over, drawn back until he wanted to scream and cry...and beg. So Steve had locked every muscle up to avoid the temptation of it all. He was stronger than that; he could outlast Tony's game.

“Look at you.” Tony clucked his tongue, the sound echoing strangely in the metal. “You’re so fucking hot for it, why don’t you just give in? Ask me, Captain: may I please come? And I’ll say yes.”

The heavy steps stopped, and Steve’s head was forward, facing Tony standing right in front of him. There was silence only interrupted by the near-inaudible hum of the sounding rod and Steve’s forceful, controlled breaths.

No, not Tony; it was still Iron Man. There was nothing personal in this act. Wasn’t that the problem?

That question floated through Steve’s mind, coming out of nowhere like he’d been trying to answer it since the start. He jerked, inhaling sharply, as Tony fisted a gauntlet-covered hand into his hair and _shoved_ his head down towards the floor. 

The tension from the belt around his throat connecting to the rope pulled at the plug in Steve’s ass. It lit Steve up, pleasure engulfing him as the plug rubbed against his prostate. He cried out around the gag, hoarse and desperate for relief, almost desperate enough to do as Tony asked. Almost.

When, obviously, no request was forthcoming, Tony moved further forward into Steve’s space, forcing him upright once more. Tony didn’t stop there, and Steve felt the full length of Tony’s leg press against his body. The shifting hip panel bumped against the gag, jarring it between Steve’s teeth and displacing some of the drool that’d built up behind the ball. It eased out of the corners of his mouth to slide down his chin. He contained his whimper at that, but couldn’t when the rest of the leg settled into place, the alloy alternating from cool to warm in different sections where it pressed from Steve’s chest to groin. 

All it took was one rippling shift of the cellular nanites in the suit, and Steve was like an untrained dog, rutting forward against Iron Man’s leg, grunting one curse then another as his motions dragged the metal rod against the alloy. Tony gave a mechanical hum and set the sounding rod off.

Steve couldn’t breathe for a moment, static whiting out his hearing as the e-stim waved through his system. He rocked mindlessly against Tony’s armored leg, finding vain, endless friction against the unyielding panels and fucking himself through the movements with the plug, no doubt smearing copious amounts of his precum against the usually pristine colors of the suit.

Steve didn't think Tony cared; he'd offer to clean it off if he had to, drag his tongue over every filthy inch of the suit until Tony was pleased and let him come. He would eventually have no choice but to beg, finally realizing then that he had no way to tell Tony to stop, that all he could do was break all of the restraints and _make_ Tony stop. If he wanted to, but he knew then that he didn't. He craved the end of this, this overwhelming sense of completion that only Tony could give him.

The realization threatened to drown him, made his spine chill, but the clicking and hissing of Tony’s armor chased it all away, left him tense and quivering in position. He didn’t want to be blindfolded anymore. He wanted to be able to look up, to watch Tony step out of the black armor, watch the red and gold panels gleam and contract beneath the bright laboratory lights. 

But then, suddenly, the gag was gone, had been gone, and Steve’s aching jaw no longer ached. He was still mindless, still blindfolded, but he was no longer bolted to the floor. Instead, he was straddling Tony’s hips, knees braced against Tony’s sides so tightly that he was sure to leave bruises. The cock inside of him was hotter than anything Steve had ever experienced, burning him from the inside out. 

It reminded him of the ice, so cold it burned before it consumed him. Consumed him like Tony was consuming him, with his cock and his steady, calloused fingers that knew everywhere and exactly where to touch to spur Steve on. His thighs worked tirelessly, lifting and dropping his body to follow Tony’s rough-spoken commands. His back remained arched, the belts and ropes still connected together and ending in the tight grip of Tony’s hand.

“That’s it, baby,” Tony ground out, smoothing one hand up a tensing thigh. He curled his fingers, letting the nails bite into the muscle in sharp, bright sparks of pleasure. Steve tensed, trembled, and moaned, and kept moaning, unable to stop when Tony finally, finally wrapped his hand around Steve’s cock and stroked him, fast and relentless.

He couldn’t stop Tony’s name spilling from his lips, chapped and red from the gag and Steve’s own teeth, over and over. His name was a plea, a curse, a wish, his touch a benediction. He felt Tony’s body tense beneath him, felt him start to meet each of Steve’s thrusts downward, and felt the first intense throb of Tony’s orgasm against his prostate.

As Steve’s climax burned bright and hot through him in response, he heard Tony whisper brokenly. “You’re so beautiful, Steve. Steve, please… Please…” 

But the world faded out before Steve could respond as, down in the detainment center, Tony jerked awake violently. Wide-eyed and heart racing, he ripped the blanket off the bed and stared in horror at the very obvious wet stain spreading across the SHIELD-issued, blue sweatpants. 

“What the fuck was that?” he asked the empty room. Chills chased their way down Tony’s arms, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed. His dick was still twitching in his pants like he’d actually been having fucking mind blowing sex with Steve. 

Steve. Not Captain America or Rogers. Not once had Tony thought of him as anything other than _Steve_ during that dream. It was Steve he’d tied up. It was Steve he’d blindfolded and stuffed full of plugs and rods and his own goddamn cock until Steve had become a shaking, sweaty mess and begged Tony for relief. And Tony had given it to him, stroking that beautiful, straining, red cock as Steve’s cum dripped over his fingers, seeping into the crevices between them. 

The dream burrowed under Tony's skin and left him reeling. He stumbled off the bed, kicking at the blanket as it tried to trip him up, and slammed his way into the tiny, sparse bathroom. 

“Jarvis,” he croaked as he turned the sink on and splashed his face with water, trying to resist the urge to drown himself under the faucet. 

“It is currently 6:34a.m., sir, and you’ve been asleep for nearly four and a half hours. Your vital signs are slightly elevated and your toxicity levels are normal.”

Tony panted at the porcelain basin, hands gripping the counter until his knuckles were white. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. 

“It was just a dream. It was just a very realistic dream.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Nothing, Jay.” He straightened and rubbed his damp hands over his face. He winced as he pressed into the bruise left by Steve’s hit and began to clean himself up as he had Jarvis check to make sure the path to the lab was clear since it was so early. When Jarvis replied in the positive, Tony finished pulling on his boots and stood. 

“Has anyone tried to contact me? Castle or Wanda?” Tony hesitated, but then asked, “Victor?”

“Regrettably, no sir,” Jarvis replied, “Would you like me to send another missive to Doctor Doom?”

“No. There’s nothing left to say,” Tony said after a moment. He grabbed a sweatshirt and his cane, leaving the room. He planned to hide in the lab for as long as he could, definitely not thinking about how Steve felt stretched around his dick. It would be a long day indeed.

~~

The music in the lab was angry and loud, drowning out everything except Tony’s cyclical thoughts. He couldn’t stop thinking about Steve and the dream, but he viciously tried to focus on the fake Doombots and the mental attack that he’d been put through. It helped that he had two of the bots disemboweled across three tables as a distraction. Currently, he was elbow deep in their coding with faraway expression as he threaded through data sequences and synapses.

They shouldn’t have been operating, that was easy enough to tell. It had only been the magic moving them along. More of a hollow, empty shell than any of the robots Tony had ever worked on, and he hated it. It left him feeling empty, too, like he’d been the one hollowed out and manipulated. 

_Steve’s desperate, broken whine as he rocked against Iron Man’s leg._

Tony’s hand jerked forward, clanging his connector against the inside of the chest cavity. He pulled his hand free and shook it slightly to try and still the trembling. 

“It’s your own fault, Stark,” he muttered, though he could only hear the hum of his voice with how loud the music was. He continued to berate himself as he went back to work, “You were dumb enough to go and fall in love after all this time. What the fuck did you expect? A white knight? Hell, you learned early on you couldn’t trust anyone. Isn’t that why you built yourself the shining armor?”

He sighed heavily, letting it be swept silently away by the music. That’s when he noticed the wafting scent of caffeine. He tensed, but didn’t turn around, already knowing it was one of two people who would dare to bother him in his clearly foul mood. 

The tray of food was set down near him in a much gentler motion than he would have done for Steve, but he supposed he could be bitter enough not to acknowledge it, so he didn’t. At least he didn’t until the large styrofoam cup of coffee was placed just out of reach. He wanted to scowl, but he didn’t want to give Steve the satisfaction. 

The music cut out, and he did scowl then. Damn Jarvis for the traitor he was, and damn Steve for thinking he still had a right to make requests of Tony’s AI. 

“Coulson says you haven’t eaten since you got to work,” Steve said, nudging the tray a little closer.

“That’s funny,” Tony said, twisting to rip out a few wires, “I thought my mother was dead.”

He could feel Steve’s eyes on him, boring into the side of his face as he continued to not look at him. But in that dream, Tony hadn’t been able to tear his gaze away from Steve. He pushed the images away violently and tried to ignore the tempting aroma of coffee.

“Coulson cares about you,” Steve said tiredly, “He’s just making sure y-”

“And yet, here you are, Captain.” Tony tossed his pliers onto the table top as he interrupted Steve, and then he snatched at the coffee so Steve couldn’t change his mind. He clutched it close to his chest and made a show of stepping towards the other table, the other robot. “If he cared so much, he wouldn’t have sent you. Aren’t you just one straw piece away from kicking my ass? I don’t have my suit on, should be pretty easy for you, a slow old man like me.”

He felt more than heard Steve’s forced, calming inhale and exhale and sipped the steaming drink. 

“I’d like to say no, Tony, but every time you open your mouth, I just want to shut you up. You don’t know when to stop, do you? This… act that you’re playing, like you’re the victim in this. You’ve killed innocent people. You’ve-”

“Stop.”

“-helped the bad guys. All for your own selfish gain! You think you’re the only who’s lost people, Tony? The only one who wants to get back at Pierce for his perceived wrongs?” 

Tony stiffened as Steve stalked up behind him. 

“What makes your pain, your revenge so goddamn special? Why should you be the outlier, the anomaly? It could be anyone, any leader of the rebellion or whatever fanciful notion this Zone keeps throwing at Pierce’s feet.

“Why does it have to be you?” Steve's voice caught on his last words, leaving Tony wondering if he was only just angry.

Tony forced his shoulders to relax, and he turned in the tight space Steve had left him to face him. He looked up at Steve, saw Steve see the bruising from his hit the day before, saw the wince, and smiled sadly in satisfaction. 

“Because I’m the only one who’ll actually pull the goddamn trigger.”

“And how many people are going to die before you get your way?” Steve asked tightly.

“As many as it takes,” Tony countered. Neither of them startled when the lights went red with an emergency alert, but after a moment, Steve scowled.

“Get suited up and meet me on the tarmac,” he said with no room for arguing. Tony did anyway.

“Don't think so, Cap. Haven't fixed the suit from your manhandling yet, so you'll have to go without me. Don't worry, though, you can always hump my leg later if you're a good boy.”

“What did you just say?” Steve asked, his tone guarded like Tony had called out a secret. 

Tony smirked and leaned back against the table, the expression pulling at the bruised skin around his eye and mouth as he said; “What, Cap? Did I hit the nail on the head? Do you think my suit is sexy?” He certainly had in the dream, Tony knew, almost salivating every time Iron Man had come close to where he knelt. “Maybe after humping my leg, you can clean it up with your ton-”

He was cut off as Steve swooped in to grip him by the bicep, unintentionally shaking him and spilling the coffee between them. 

“Shut up!” Steve spat through gritted teeth, “You- How- You can’t possibly… How do you _know_ about that?!”

The red alert continued to blare around them, but they were lost to it as they stared at each other. One in shock, the other quickly getting there. 

“What do you mean ‘how do I know’?” Tony asked seriously, “Steve, I was just…”

“Do you have magic, too?! What else don’t I know about you?! Are you in my head, Tony?!’ Steve jerked him again, and Tony adamantly shook his head. 

“No! There’s no- I don’t have magic!” His fingers let go of the cup, letting the last of its contents splash against the floor as it landed with a soft ‘thwip’. “It was just a dream I had. I was just jok-”

Steve shoved him forcibly into the table, pupils blown and breathing uneven. 

“Stop _lying_ to me! That’s the exact fucking dream I had!” 

Tony’s breath froze, the table digging into his spine as Steve pushed into him. He caught at Steve’s arms in return, twisting his shirt up in his fists. 

“No,” he said faintly, body going hot and cold at the implication that they’d had the same dream, shared the same experience, that Steve would have heard how desperately in lo- “No. No, you’re the one lying this time. It’s not possible without magic!”

“You put me in ropes and chained me to the floor,” Steve said, dangerously low. “You made me beg.”

Tony’s heart pounded painfully in his chest, beating a sudden lust through his blood. 

“Steve, I-”

“Captain!” Before his title was even finished, Steve was halfway across the room, striding towards that redheaded agent as if his conversation with Tony hadn’t been life altering. The woman eyed Tony, and he forced himself to turn away, waiting until their steps had faded before he braced his hands on the table. After a moment, he sunk down and pressed his forehead to the cool metal, breathing out in counts of five to calm himself. 

“What’s different?” he asked himself, “What happened? When did… it… happen…”

It came to him then, sudden and staggering. The sorcerer that had mind fucked him the day before, the green light that had pushed the blue of his own wider and stronger than it should’ve been. 

He curled his hands into fists so even he couldn’t see them shake, and eventually, he was able to block it out and go back to work. 

~~

Steve had been unable to block it out, no matter how hard he’d tried to focus on the mission, and perhaps that’s why he was going in and out of consciousness while people talked above him. If he’d been cognizant enough, he might have found it ironic that he was where Tony had been just a month ago. Except Steve had fucked up and let the small band of smugglers surprise him, using ammunitions he hadn’t encountered before. The bullets had slammed into him, felt like they’d exploded, and sent him reeling off the shipping container he’d been fighting on. The last thing he remembered hearing was Natasha shouting and the distant sound of a helicopter. 

The gurney beneath him clacked over a doorway, and the bright light of the operating room was blurry, but his vision soon dimmed as they pumped enhanced anesthetics into his system. All the drugs did was make him feel heavy and queasy. He’d told the SHIELD doctors that time and again, but they never seemed to listen. He saw the small SHIELD insignia on the sleeve of the closest coat and let his eyes close.

There wasn’t anything he could do now, caught motionless by the drugs that burned just a bit too fast to actually render him unconscious. He’d been through this before, so he’d learned long ago how to zone out from the blinding pain of surgery. As they cut him open around the embedded fragments of the hollow points he’d been shot with, he forcibly shoved his thoughts away from the noise and the paralysis. It left him with thoughts of Tony, but they were jumbled and blurred too. The dream, their argument, the truth… They all swirled together into a boulder that was beginning to press down, weighing heavily on his conscience. 

Tony had fallen in love with him. The words he hadn’t been meant to hear, a private moment just another item on the list he’d stolen from Tony. How would he ever prove that he’d never meant it to get this far if he couldn’t stop taking and taking? 

He’d told Tony months ago, brushed off his suspicions, that he didn’t think Pierce was as bad as Tony thought. The truth was, though, that Steve hadn’t been able to accept it. Accepting it had meant accepting that he’d died for nothing. He’d failed when he’d sacrificed himself to stop Hydra, and now…

Well, Tony had paid the price for Steve’s failure, hadn’t he? How was Steve supposed to accept that? How was he supposed to live with that knowledge, and the very fact that he’d done nothing but lie to Tony’s face and use him for the so-called ‘greater good’?.

And through it all, he knew now that Tony had somehow managed to fall in love with him. The part of Steve that was terrified of what it all meant wanted to be callous, to call Tony out on an emotion that surely had to be fake. How could someone like Tony ever trust enough to fall in love?

How would Tony ever believe him when he admitted the same? 

A sharp, piercing pain tore through Steve’s daze, sending blazing needles all along his spine down to his toes. He wanted to jerk, to squirm, to cry out, but his body wouldn’t move, his mouth slack under the mask. The monitors behind the nurses remained steady, if not a little elevated, and Steve was on fire. Moments like these, when time slowed down to a fevered crawl and where he knew nothing but agony, he could absolutely understand why Tony wanted to watch the world burn.

Time stretched and stretched, Steve’s mind wildly conjuring up images of rubber bands extending until their material was going white under the strain. And then, the immediate sensation was snatched away as coolness hit him in patches across his body. Odd noises filtered through his muffled hearing: squeaks and squeals, numerous voices that ranged from low to high to funny to exasperated. 

The room shook from it all, or maybe it was just Steve’s gurney. He didn’t know, and he kind of cared, but the constant pain was fading to an ache, so he didn’t question it. A voice came at him like an adult from the Peanuts show he’d found had been made from those funnies that had appeared in the papers after his death. It was followed by another sharp pain that he couldn’t flinch from, but at least it was a short-lived one. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, what was one more prick? 

He tried to blink, but his eyes wouldn’t open. The weight of his body still held him down, and his breathing was beginning to slow. He tried to grasp at his train of thought, Tony and his feelings, but everything was slipping through his fingers until finally…

~~

A smear of red, black, and gold was the first sight to greet him when Steve managed to pry his eyes open. For a moment, he was confused, and when he realized what he was looking at, his heart beat gave him away on the monitor above his head as his sense kicked into alert.  
“Relax, the suit’s empty.”

Steve turned his head to look at Tony, who sat in a chair by a window. He had his legs drawn up so that his feet were propped on the windowsill, and the cuffs of his sweatpants had slid up to reveal a smattering of dark hair on Tony’s ankle. It struck Steve as weirdly intimate. He cleared his throat and looked back to the armor. 

“What happened? Why-” He cut himself off and shook his head a little, trying to recall just what the hell had occurred. “Where are we?”

Tony huffed once, absently turning a styrofoam cup in his hands. “Don’t worry; we’re still in your ‘home, sweet, home’, medical and all. You told me you stopped going to the SHIELD doctors and why. So when I heard that they’d brought you in and taken you into surgery immediately, I came down to observe.”

The way Tony’s voice hardened on his last word made Steve’s heart thump painfully. He glanced at the suit again, then back to Tony. Everything was still fuzzy, the pain a distant ache in his gut, but he could feel his body healing and sealing up the bullet wounds. He didn’t remember the doctor’s finishing the surgery, though. 

“Tony, what did you do?” He asked slowly, carefully flexing his hands atop the hospital covers. He wanted to shake the answer out of him, get it faster, know it already. He’d never lost time like that with the doctors before. It was… He was feeling a little claustrophobic at the thought. 

“They were torturing you,” Tony answered, a flat tone used as a mask Steve had learned was to cover any emotion that got the better of him, “and I stopped it.”

“Torturing? What are you talking about? They’ve never tortured me. They just don’t-”

“Exactly!” Tony snapped, and he brought his feet down from the window to the floor. “They _don’t_. They don’t know. They don’t think. They don’t ask. They don’t _care_ what it does to you! And you’re just going to keep letting them take you apart until there’s nothing left! And then what?! You’ll pull yourself together and go back out there to _fight_ for them?! Why? Why do you do this to yourself?!”

“Because someone has to,” Steve replied softly, and he could see some of Tony’s anger deflate from his posture. “Look around us, Tony. There aren’t… There aren’t that many of us. This world needs all the help it can get. And even I know I’m not enough, but I’m trying. I’m trying to do what’s right and what’s good and save a little of this planet for the ones who come to fill our shoes. I thought…”

“What? You thought what? That I was the same? That you wouldn’t have to do it alone?” Tony sneered and put his feet back up as he tipped his head back against his chair. “Sorry to break it to you, Cap, but I’m not interested in saving the world. All I care about is Pierce.”

Neither of them said anything for a few moments as Steve’s heart monitor slowed back to its normal pace, and he hummed quietly. 

“You, Tony Stark, really aren’t that good of a liar,” he pointed out, unable to help the fondness coloring his tone. 

Tony closed his eyes. 

“You can pretend all you want that you’re a cold-hearted, selfish, and uncaring bastard, but I can see through you now,” Steve said with a tone that dared Tony to argue with him, “Reckless, I’ll give you that, and maybe a little too reliant on your tech, but there’s not a damn bone in your body that doesn’t care.”

“You’re still woozy. Go back to sleep,” Tony commented tiredly. 

Steve steamrolled on, the words coming up now that he’d started. “I saw you with your little garden of budding scientists. You were so careful to spend the same amount of time teaching each of those kids about your robots. And don’t think I don’t know about the savings bonds you gave each of their families. 

“You save everyone you can, and yeah, that’s not always everyone, but I’ve seen all your tapes, all the footage. And God, why can’t you see this yourself?! Tony, you care more than most of the agents in this base. If you didn’t- If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have stopped the doctors.”

Tony remained silent, and Steve hummed again. 

“You designed something, didn’t you? Some new… anesthetic that knocked me out? That’s why I can’t remember anything, isn’t it?”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony muttered, lifting a hand to rub at his face, “Yes! Yes, I did! And you know what? It was fucking easy. It was like opening a jar! And if you’re not Patrick fucking Star, then it’s a simple fucking gesture. Therefore, I maintain, that it was perfectly valid for me to get in there and take over. Especially since they’d decided imaginary shrapnel had settled near your spinal cord.”

“My hero.” Steve was only half joking, mouth quirking at the phrase. 

“Shut up,” Tony sighed, “Dr. Cho finished working with you under supervision. All I did was knock you out. And maybe broke a few things, like equipment and-” he lifted his cup to his lips, muttering the rest into his drink, “-bones.”

“And the suit?” Steve wondered.

Tony rolled his head to the side to look at Iron Man. When others could only see the colors of the material and the shape of the suit, he saw the millions of little equations and schematics that went into it, all of the tiny wires and pin-sized pieces. He saw safety and power. 

“Your temporary insurance policy,” he answered after a moment, and Steve’s expression went softer still. He relaxed against the pillows, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. 

“You dreamt about me,” Tony mused quietly.

“You started it,” Steve accused without heat. He watched Tony’s gaze swing his direction then dart away, “The elevator… That was yours, not mine. I-I think I just helped shape it. You wanted to get sushi.”

Tony frowned and looked down at his hands. He scratched one thumbnail along his other thumb, opened his mouth once or twice, then shook his head. 

“You were wearing a wedding ring…”

Steve flushed, heat sweeping up his neck to his cheeks, and he cleared his throat. He didn’t follow that thread, choosing to hit at the core.

“Something’s in our heads,” he said, and he watched Tony look up again, brow furrowed, “And you think you know what happened, don’t you?”

“The fake Iron Man…” Tony sat up again, scraping the chair as he turned it to face Steve fully, “He’s got some obsession with me. I mean, that’s obvious, but beyond the suit… He’s been in my head. He was in my head the other day, using… It doesn’t matter what, but he was fucking with me. I wasn’t in control. I couldn’t stop my response or my repulsors. When I fired, it wasn’t only me. He expanded the shots, reinforced the power. I think that’s when h-”

“You keep saying ‘he’. How do you know for sure?”

Tony gave Steve a look like the gender wasn’t the important part of the story, saying, “I told you, he was in my head, saying things, trying to fuck with me. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he connected us somehow. I haven’t run into any other sorcerers than Scarlet Witch, and she would never do that to me.”

Steve must have made a face, because Tony flapped a hand and grimaced. 

“I know she wouldn’t.”

“Tony, we have to bring this guy down. Who knows what else he did to us.” Steve rubbed his hands over his face, feeling a weighted frustration bearing down on his shoulders. 

“Fuck you,” Tony spat, and when Steve dropped his hands, Tony’s were buried in his hair with his head bowed. “I’ve been telling you since the beginning, and you didn’t believe me. We could’ve done this ‘working together’ thing you want so badly from the beginning. Instead, look at where we are. We’re fucked in the head, and you’re spouting this boyscout shit like I’m not a bad guy.”

He pushed to his feet and walked over to his suit. His name was on the tip of Steve’s tongue again, but he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth. 

“Stay in the bed for at least tonight. Who knows what I did to you,” Tony said dryly, then he patted Iron Man’s shoulder, said ‘Night Guard Protocol, code Alpha-5-30-86-03,’ then went to leave. Iron Man’s eyes lit up as his joints whirred him into position to be on guard near the door. 

“That’s really not necessary,” Steve murmured, and Tony paused halfway into the hallway. 

“You didn’t see yourself on that table,” was Tony’s low response as the door swung shut after him. Iron Man’s faceplate turned towards Steve, empty and eerie. 

“Oh, shut up,” Steve muttered, slouching down in the bed and throwing his arm over his eyes. 

~~

“T-Tony, ah, we should-” Steve groaned thickly, swallowing when Tony swallowed. 

Tony's mouth was hot and wet, and the suction was tight, sliding along Steve's shaft like Tony could drag Steve's orgasm out of him with one powerful twist of his tongue. He was looking at Steve through his lashes, gaze dark and hungry.

Steve had no choice but to bury his hands in Tony's hair, to mess it up and finally make Tony less than perfect. He pulled Tony up by his hair to lick and nip at his swollen and damp lips. He worried his teeth at the chapped bow of Tony's lower lip until it split. The result colored their kiss with the sharp tang of blood, and Tony grunted, pressing the heel of his hand against Steve's pelvis. He didn't jerk out of the kiss, spreading the blood along their tongues instead.

Steve's cock was leaving damp spots of precum against the hospital sheets, already soaked from Tony's spit leaving him a dripping mess. It became trapped between Steve and Tony's tailored suit, and he rocked up into Tony with abandon, chasing the pleasure and friction.

“Steve.” Steve ignored Tony's voice, nuzzling at his throat and jaw. He was trying his best to leave a mark that no one could mistake, the burn of climax just beginning to curl his toes.

Tony shoved Steve's head back against the pillow, fingers gripping his jaw impossibly hard.

“This isn't real! Wake up,” Tony snapped, “I don't w-”

Steve’s world went a little fuzzy, but he didn’t care because he was sliding into Tony and it was hot and tight and he sounded so good. He slid his hands up from Tony’s ass to map his spine, frowning as the skin beneath his palms felt supple, too smooth. The body in his lap, rocking and grinding was too lithe, too lean, and Natasha’s expression was furrowed in concentration. Her mouth parted on a husky sigh, and it startled Steve enough that he woke up in the quiet of his darkened room. 

The armor was still playing guard, silent and judging. Steve carefully rolled over and shoved his pillow over his head. 

~~

Tony startled as two bots were dropped on the table in front of him, and he blinked at them through the screen of data he’d been viewing. The sounds of the SHIELD employees going about their day drowned out again as the door to his claimed lab finally slid shut again.

“Just once I’d like flowers. Remember when you used to be so romantic, bringing me dinner and fried oreos?” 

“I’m sure there are plenty of jokes I could make right now,” Steve answered, pushing the cowl of his uniform off his hair as he settled on the other side of the table, “but why don’t we just go with what you can tell me about these compared to the others?”

Tony blinked again, but pushed his goggles up into his hair. He rubbed his eyes before he began to pull apart the closest robot. 

“Our copycat is getting sloppy,” he said, tossing a faceplate one way and some ripped out wires another. He pointed to the empty robot, “He’s not even trying anymore. These certainly run on magic, and Cap, I don’t know if you know this, but not everyone can use magic ‘round these parts.”

“You’re hilarious, but cut the crap, Tony. We both know your boyfriend can use magic. What’s to-”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Tony cut in dismissively, though his ears burned at the insinuation. Once upon a time… 

“-say he’s not just getting lazy or bored playing this game with us? Why don’t we just call him out and find out what he really wants?” Steve actively steamrolled past Tony’s rebuttal, 

“Well, I would, but I’m telling you that it’s not him. Victor wouldn’t be this needlessly cruel. Whoever is running these fake bots is also running the fake Iron Man, and I bet you… I _guarantee_ you that they’re connected to Pierce.”

“You keep saying that, Tony, but you’ve got no proof. Director Pierce has done nothing to try and get to you since you’ve been here. There’s no sabotage, no funny business, nothing. Your theory is drowning in dead weight with nothing to support it.” 

Tony looked away from Steve and over the table of scraps. Maybe he would have to go to drastic measures then. Maybe he needed to make it easier. 

“Take the suit.”

“Excuse me?” Steve blinked and actually took a step away from the tables and the Iron Man suit that was standing at the door. “Why would I do that? Why would you want me to do that? You spent months fighting me to get it back!”

Tony tilted his head and couldn’t stop the smile that started to stretch his mouth. The threat of it bit into his cheek and crinkled his eyes. 

“It won’t bite you,” he practically purred, “Not unless you want it to. I can make t-”

“Stop! That’s not- Could you be serious for one minute?” Steve’s face was bright red, but he was clearly composing himself rather quickly with a hand through his hair. 

“I assure you, Rogers,” Tony murmured, “I’m being deadly serious. I want you to take the suit from me. Lock it up. Keep it on you. I promise you, then something will happen. It’ll all culminate right before your eyes after that.”

Tony watched Steve’s throat bob, watched his gaze dart from the suit, to Tony’s hands, back up to Tony’s face. 

“Fine. Get it in the case, and I’ll do what you want. But I’m only giving you a week like this. After that, you’re back in the field with me.”

“Aww, I thought you’d never ask.” The reply was deadpan, but Tony had to hop down from the lab table and turn away to hide his reaction. Except, he could never hide from Steve, at least not anymore. That was made evident by Steve’s heat that was suddenly pressed against the length of Tony’s body. His large hands slid forward and around to cover Tony’s hands. 

Steve’s hands were warm, slightly clammy, and secure. They threaded through his fingers, pinning them to the table, as Steve’s mouth ghosted across the nape of Tony’s neck. 

“I miss having you at my back, Iron Man,” Steve murmured. No, that was his Captain’s gruffness. It sent arousal, blazing hot, down Tony’s spine, churning around his gut to thicken his cock. He suppressed his shiver, barely, and didn’t move. “And despite the way you spun that dream the other night, I like feeling you around me too. I’ll let you get away with it this time, but next time, don’t you dare substitute someone like that. That’s disrespectful, and it makes me really want to take you apart.”

Tony could barely catch his breath, stunned at Steve’s words. His heart raced, betraying him to Steve’s ears, and the chuckle at his ear was proof enough. 

“Lock the suit up, Mr. Stark,” he murmured, nose brushing along Tony’s hairline, “You’re under house arrest until further notice.”

“Jarvis,” and Tony hated how rough his voice was, how truthful it was in the wake of Steve’s surprise assault. The suit didn’t move for a brief moment, before it disassembled and collected itself inside the case. It shut and locked neatly after itself, waiting for Steve’s possession as he finally moved away from Tony. 

“I’ll see you around, Mr. Stark,” Steve said, mocking him with a salute before he took the case and sauntered out. 

“Sir?” Jarvis said in his ear, “Your vitals are quite elevated. Perhaps you need some fresh air.”

“Piss off,” Tony scowled, shaking out his hands and going back to work on one of the Doombots. 

~~

A few days later, Clint was perched on a rooftop that, with the right equipment, afforded him a view of Stark’s room. His cowl was rumpled against his shoulders, and the heavy night-vision mask sat on his face, causing a bead of sweat to trickle down along his jaw. He’d been on this rooftop every night since Captain America had taken the Iron Man suit, and honestly? He was getting a little bored of watching Stark sleep and was kind of hoping that something would finally happen.

When movement in the corridor outside of Stark’s room caught his attention, he knew he’d gotten his wish. Poised on the balls of his feet and aided by the point of his bow, his balance was perfect and still. He wanted to lunge forward into the fray, but the distance was too great and their plan required him to start heading into the city. So, he was left to watching Stark wake up swinging, surely alerted by some program of Jarvis’ or his own instincts bringing him out of sleep with a shock of warning. 

Blackout screens concealed identities, but their equipment and their pristine states denoted them easily as Government, capital ‘G’. Pierce’s men had finally been sent to take Stark from SHIELD. Clint had always bet that Stark wasn’t so crazy after all. He wondered where Captain America had gotten to, but he didn’t have time to care about that. He wasn’t part of the plan, not really. He adjusted the mask’s goggles and yawned. 

The mask was good, but it still was hard to keep track of the heat signatures as Stark was pulled out of the bed and dropped onto the floor. Clint spied the first energy blast from Stark’s wrist, missed the second one that slammed another guy into a wall, and saw the third drop another to the floor. When Stark scrambled to his knees, someone grabbed his wrist and yanked it backwards, most likely grinding bones together, until a fist took him under a heavy blow.

Stark’s body went limp, and Clint stood up, removing his mask. He dropped it to the roof and pulled on his cowl before beginning to scale down his building. 

“Ring the bell, gorgeous. It’s time,” he said, pressing hard on an earpiece that would have stood out with its bright purple if it hadn’t been hidden beneath his cowl. There was a slight scuffling sound in response, and he had to roll his eyes.

“He clearly meant me!” came over the line with a thick accent. 

“You’re both hot,” Ronin said almost fondly, “but seriously. Get Castle, and let’s get this show on the road.”

“Wanda goes now,” Pietro said, “You come here, or you want me t-”

“Come meet me. I’m going to bring in our strongest weapon,” Ronin interrupted, disappearing in the shadows between buildings.

“I’m flattered you finally nicknamed my dick, but I think we need more firepower,” Pietro quipped.

Ronin did the worst thing he could have done: encouraged Pietro with a snicker. He said; “I’d break you, kid. Meet me in the Square, and bring your running shoes.”

“All shoes are running shoes,” Pietro replied, and that was that.  
~~~

Steve woke up on the cold concrete of a warehouse floor. He kept his eyes closed, taking in the bruised, hot feeling of his skin and the way it felt stretched too tightly over his bones. The weight of a metal muzzle framed his jaw and kept his head pinned to magnet in the floor.

When he tried to move his hands, he found his wrists caught in what was most likely the same metal that was wrapped over his mouth. He let the frustration well up through every inch of his body, disgusted with himself for his predicament.

The false Iron Man, Steve could say with a bitter certainty, had blindsided him, dodged the ricochet of his shield, and thrown Steve through not one, but two buildings. When the second foundation had settled around him, his world had gone dark. 

“Boss ain’t gonna be happy about him bein’ here.”

“I didn’t see you telling that freak no, either.”

“What, ‘n’ get myself turned into a toad or somethin’? No fuckin’ way. Pierce don’t scare me near as much as that guy.”

Steve breathed slowly out of his nose, finding a little comfort in the voices being in the room next to him. If he could get his legs underneath himself, it should give him enough leverage to force his head away from the magnet. His brows drew down in concentration and slowly, with effort, he dragged his legs up until first one knee, then the other was beneath him. The strain on his neck was rough, but he took a few fortifying breaths, braced his knees, and began to shove his shoulders up from the concrete.

“He’s working for Pierce; you should absolutely be afraid of Pierce. I mean, think about it. What’s one of the sorcerers doing Pierce’s work for if he’s not a dangerous motherfucker?”

Steve panted heavily as he dragged himself away from the magnet, heart pounding with the exertion. When the straining effort gave way to breaking the pull of the magnet, he wasn’t quick enough to stall his own motion and ended up flat on his back to stare at the ceiling. Sweat dripped into his eye and he squeezed them shut, shaking his head a little. 

“You got it all wrong, man. I heard he’s just got something that guy wants. No clue what it is, though. A guy like that don’t exactly need money, ya know?”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Be scared of both of them, and we should make it out without too much shit.”

Steve would have to break the bad news to them, preferably while knocking them unconscious. He shifted his legs to ease the strain of the new position then rolled over to get up on his feet. All that seemed to be occupying the room with him were a few shipping crates taking up the far corner of the room. There were a few workstations and a couple closed doors; one near Steve and the room where the other men were talking, and another was near the big bay doors leading, presumably, outside. 

He hesitated, knowing outside meant almost immediate freedom, but there was obviously a wealth of evidence in this warehouse. If he had enough time, he could probably get all the information he needed prove there was a fake Iron Man and Pierce’s involvement in the whole scheme. 

He rolled his shoulders, wrists biting into the edges of the cuffs.

He wouldn’t escape, not without gathering what he could. He started forward towards the door where the men were still speaking, but there was a force in the air behind him, a slight whirl of the atmosphere. 

“Well, well. You seem to be in quite the predicament, Captain.”

Steve blinked at the portal and silver-masked man standing before it. His expression went hard, gaze narrowed, and he widened his stance.

“Doctor Doom,” he replied tightly, “Sorry to burst your bubble, but your boyfriend isn’t here right now.”

“I’m well aware of that, Captain,” Victor said, retracting his mask and letting his hood settle about his shoulders, “Anthony is currently being dragged before Pierce while you play around in this… warehouse.” 

“What are you- What did you do to Tony?!” Steve growled, shoulders bunching as he pulled at the cuffs on his wrists. “I swear to God, I’ll rip that pretty smile off your face if you- if you-”

Steve trailed off as Doom stumbled from a clap to the shoulder. A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped from the portal, bearing a grin that fought back that gloom of the warehouse. 

“Just as you said, Doctor. He looks to be a worthy fighter. Come, let me see those bindings. I fear my brother’s been up to his old tricks.”

Steve backed up once, assessing, as the man stepped forward. 

“Forgive me, Captain, I’ve forgotten the introductions,” Victor said, lifting a hand in an easy shrug, “This is Thor, son of Odin. He’s come to solve the little problem of Anthony’s copycat.”  
“No need to be so formal, just Thor is fine. Come, come. Turn around, Captain.” Thor spun Steve around easily and clucked his tongue at the bindings, “This is definitely Loki’s work. Just hang on a moment.”

“Now wait just one minute!” Steve shook himself out of his confused daze and turned around again in time to see Thor haul another person through Doom’s portal. This man was thinner, paler, and giving off an aura of bored detachment. 

“I honestly don’t see why I should even bother, brother. He’s obviously freed himself of most of the bindings. I’m sure the rest are no problem for him.”

“You will remove the bindings, Loki,” Thor argued, shaking Loki just a little, “and you will apologize to the Captain for your interference.”

Loki rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. The cuffs dropped to the floor behind Steve with the loud sound of metal on concrete. That was what finally brought the henchmen running into the room. 

For Steve, everything seemed to be happening too fast, but the guns that were raised and fired were grounding, something he was used to and could fight against. Well, if he had his shield, that was. There was a bored sigh and a pulse of energy that pushed past him and blasted the henchmen and their guns across the room to crash into the wall. 

Steve watched their bodies slide down and blinked. He shook his head again and looked to group by the portal. 

“What the hell is going on?” he asked and hoped that he didn’t sound as bewildered as he felt.

“I’m cleaning up the mess you’re in,” Victor answered, “Now, if you don’t mind, there is the small matter of Anthony-”

Steve’s fist smashed into Victor’s mouth before he finished, and while it was purely jealousy that fueled the hit, it was satisfying in a primal, possessive way. 

“Isn’t that interesting,” Loki purred, but Thor stepped between them, hands up towards Steve. 

“You stay away from Tony,” Steve warned over Thor’s shoulder. 

“There are more pressing matters to attend to than your misplaced jealousy.” Victor touched at his nose and mouth, turning towards the portal.

Steve fumed quietly for a moment before letting out a harsh exhale through his nose. He glanced at Thor and Loki and drew himself up to his full height.  
“Tony’s case is here somewhere,” he said, rubbing at his knuckles. 

“Of course it is,” Victor sneered. He stepped away from the portal and waved Steve towards it, “Go on. It’ll take you to Anthony, and we will follow with his suit. I assume you’d like to be the one to ride to his rescue, the white knight.”

“This is all… extremely fascinating and nauseating, but we’ll be going. Yes, brother?” Loki asked, examining his nails. 

“First, we will finish helping these mortal men. Then, we’ll retrieve the Tesseract and go home. You owe them that much. Not to mention the Doctor and myself. I was in the middle of a great hunt and now Lady Sif will have all the brag-”

“Oh, for the love of Odin.” Loki crossed his arms. “Fine, but let’s just get on with this.” 

“Great, out of my way,” Steve growled, pushing himself past the others to step through Victor’s portal. He’d think about how he blindly trusted the man’s word about where it would lead him, but for now, he could only think about getting to Tony before PIerce could do any lasting damage. 

~~

“Tony, Tony, Tony. You’ve been a serious pain in my ass, boy,” Alexander said with a cluck of his tongue, “It’s finally time to put a stop to that.” 

His shiny loafers came into Tony’s blurry vision and shoved his face up. He grunted around the cloth gag, curling his fingers into fists behind his back. His ribs ached with the struggle he’d put up against Pierce’s men, and his nose burned with the strong scent of the harbor just beyond the pier. He could almost feel the water lapping at his clothes. 

“Oh, look at that fire in your eyes.” Alexander crouched down and pulled on Tony’s head with a hand in his hair. “I always loved that expression on you. Just a shame you couldn’t contain it to the bedroom. I tried to be so good to you.”

Tony cursed him quite emphatically despite the muffling of his words, but Pierce just laughed, dropping his head back to the pier. He stepped back and waved a hand at the soldier behind him. 

“Drop him, so we can go deal with the riot his friends are causing before they destroy my city.” 

The soldier stepped forward, catching Tony beneath the arms to drag him up from the planks. The chains around Tony’s legs clanked as he was pulled up to the edge of the pier. The cinder blocks scraped against the wood, and Tony’s anger gave way to fear to rattle around his lungs. He panted and began thrashing against the man holding him. There was a loud thump and shouting, and then Tony was let go when Steve barreled into the soldier. Tony landed, rocking on the edge of the pier. He caught his breath and jerked forward away from the water, nearly catching Steve’s elbow in the face as Steve snapped the soldier’s neck. 

Tony laughed at the sight, slightly hysterical, and blinked furiously at Steve as he tried to wriggle closer. 

“Tony!” Steve shoved the corpse away and twisted towards Tony to rip the gag off. 

“Get my hands!” Tony gasped, craning his neck to try and spy PIerce around Steve. “Where’s my suit?”

“I got you, baby,” Steve said, hugging Tony to him to break the cuffs around his wrists. “Doom and Thor are bringing it.”

“Who the fuc-”

The rapport of the gunshot filled Tony’s ears before the impact of the bullet threw Steve and Tony forward. 

“Steve? Steve?!” Tony pushed at Steve’s shoulders, watching blood bloom against his fingers. 

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Tony-”

“I’m getting really tired of your interference, Captain,” Alexander snapped, cocking the hammer on his pistol again. Steve levered himself upward and put himself between Tony and Pierce. 

“You know, I’m getting really tired of you trying to kill my boyfriend,” Steve growled. He stood, the bloodstain spreading down from his shoulder along his spine. Tony started scrambling at the chains wrapped around his legs. 

“Come on, Vic. Where the fuck are you?” he muttered, casting frantic glances between Steve and Pierce. He watched Steve take a step forward, swore, and grabbed at Steve’s uniform just as Pierce fired again. Without Tony to stop the momentum, Steve wheeled backward, tripped over Tony, and fell into the harbor. 

Tony watched the spray of blood that followed as if it happened in slow motion. “Steve! No!” He rolled towards the end, shoving his hand into the waters.

“You should worry about yourself, Tony,” Pierce mused, sauntering up to where Tony lay stretched over the pier. “Your pretty prince isn’t going to save you this time. Now where were we?”

Tony snarled, but when he went to turn over, Pierce just caught up the chains and dragged him up the pier. 

“I was going to make this slow and painful, but as usual, you’re just making a mess of everything.” 

“Screw you,” Tony spat.

“Been there, done that,” Pierce smirked, dragging Tony up one last time to press the barrel of his gun under Tony’s chin, “Goodbye, Tony.”

Tony wanted to close his eyes, to picture anything but the man in front of him in his final seconds, but he would never, never give Pierce the satisfaction. 

“I’ll see you in Hell,” Tony promised thickly. 

Again, the gunshot filled Tony’s ears before anything else. This time, though, it was Pierce that jerked with the impact. It was Pierce that fell backwards, bleeding, letting go of the gun as he landed. Blood flowed from the wound in his forehead, and it was Steve Tony saw with the gun when he fell back against the pier. 

“You beautiful, beautiful man,” Tony whispered, staring at Steve’s dripping wet form where he knelt beside the soldier’s body. 

Steve tossed the gun down and crawled to Tony. He bent over, pressing their foreheads together. 

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” Steve murmured, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, if he’s dead, I’m perfect.”

“Unless he can come back from a bullet to the brain, we’re good.”

Tony laughed shortly, blinking drops of water out of his eyes. 

“Can never be sure in our line of work.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Victor announced from a few feet away, “I’ll take care of Pierce’s body. You should take your boyfriend to the hospital.”

“Oh, darling,” Tony sighed, closing his eyes, “Better late than never.”

~~

_Two weeks later..._

Captain America threw Iron Man bodily into the wall. He felt no regret as he watched the armor slide down, metal scraping the cement on screeching impact. Tony struggled to right himself under the weight of the suit, forcing it to obey so he could come up on one knee. Steve felt the rage build in his throat like the roaring in his ears.

“No!” He snarled, shaking his palm once to let the EMP drop to the pavement. He stalked forward. “I'm in control now, so stay down where I put you.”

He watched the black and gold faceplate turn towards him as he prowled across the deserted street. The motion was jerky, electricity sparking weakly, arcing between the paneling of the armor, and Captain America felt the thrill of his victory. 

Coming up on his knee must have been all Iron Man had strength to do, because he didn’t move anymore the closer the Captain got to him. That was fine by Steve. He planted a hand right against the faceplate and slammed Iron Man’s head back into the wall. More of the cement cracked and crumbled to the sidewalk, and Iron Man bent backward as the hydraulics in his suit whined their displeasure. 

“I know you’re listening, because you can’t do anything else,” Steve said through the clench of his teeth, the ticking muscle in his jaw, “Tony, I’m going to say this once. Give in. Now.”

_Steve squirms a little in the low chair, stretching his toes towards the warm sun just beyond the shade of the umbrella. He’s content, and it shows in the relaxed curve of his spine as he sighs deeply. There’s a low hum of approval that rumbles up in Tony’s throat as he watches. He loves watching Steve, and he does so now. His cheek is on the bend of his arm, the skin warm from th-_

“Stop!” Steve growled, his gaze fierce behind the cowl. He was straddling Iron Man now, gloved fingers bending in between the shoulder panels to start prying them apart. The left shoulder plate went first, and Steve threw it behind him. The clatter of it along the pavement went pretty much unnoticed as, with the first opening, he found it much easier to get the rest of the armor off. He stayed below Iron Man’s head, peeling the suit open from the shoulders down, piece by piece as he revealed Tony’s body underneath. 

_Steve’s body is warm and wet as he tackles Tony into the roll of the surf. Tony almost isn’t quick enough to stop laughing before he swallows a mouthful of seawater. Almost. He’s not worried about getting tossed around by the undertow, because Steve’s arms are strong around his waist, his balance perfection even under the water. They break the surface, and Steve’s smile is brighter than the sun’s ref-_

“You think you’re clever,” Steve mused, low and tense. He felt the warmth of that foray against the back of his neck even though they were in the dim, red-lit room of some vaguely-formed basement. If Tony could see, he’d probably pout and glance at Steve with a pitiful, pleading expression. It was one of the reasons Steve had returned the favor and blindfolded him. 

Tony groaned in answer, the sound short and wet with the metal o-ring holding his mouth open. Steve smirked, watching the drool pool up and spill out of the corners of Tony’s mouth as he pushed his tongue against his teeth, against the ring, anywhere but flat in his mouth.

“Feeling a little empty?” Steve wondered and crossed his arms, shifting his position where he leaned against a low table in front of Tony. Tony’s table was just a little lower, wider too, the perfect height for Steve because Steve was. In. Control. The table was pushed against the brick wall, and Tony was connected to it via a heavy metal bolt that attached to another ring in the clasps of the harness. It gave him no leeway to move his head except side to side, but only very little. 

Tony stilled his tongue, and Steve could tell he wanted to close his mouth, hide from the openness of the ring spreading apart his lips. But when he didn’t continue speaking, he saw Tony slowly start to test the bindings he’d been put in. He jerked his arms and flexed his hands around the metal supports attached to the suspension cuffs. 

Bold black cuffs made from lambskin and lined in faux red and gold chinchilla fur for Tony’s comfort and his ego. It wasn’t as if he could see it, but Steve knew, and that was the important part. He happened to like those colors; he was rather fond of them on Tony. They currently held Tony’s hands up with his arms spread wide. The hooks rattled against their anchors as he scraped his hands against the brick wall. 

Steve waited breathlessly for a moment, wondering if Tony would try to steamroll over him with another interpretation of domestic bliss. The previous assaults still slid over Steve’s skin like a warm caress, and he stepped away from where he leant to stand at the edge of Tony’s table. He watched Tony’s head try to turn to the side, but he couldn’t quite make it all the way, so he righted it, facing Steve unerringly. Drool continued to trickle out of his open mouth, soaking into his goatee and the straps of the harness. 

Steve’s thighs stopped a hair away from bumping into the table, and he lifted both hands to cup Tony’s jaw. He felt Tony jolt, felt the tremor that rattled the hooks slightly, and smirked. He stroked his thumbs along the sharp cut of Tony’s jaw, swept them over the harness and the damp hair.

“I should beat you black and blue,” Steve murmured, fingers framing Tony’s head to press behind his ears. He forced Tony’s chin up a sliver, earning a grunt. “Maybe if I mark you enough you’ll remember who you chose to belong to.” 

That time, Steve was expecting Tony’s retaliation and curled down over him just as he lost focus.

_He stares at the plate for a long moment, at the burnt toast and runny-in-the-wrong-way eggs. He licks his lips and feels like the Grinch when his heart grows three sizes. Beside him, Steve is laughing, muffling the sound against his coffee cup as he watches Tony with a bemused expression. The words aren’t said, passing between them without the need to hear them aloud. He doesn’t have to eat the breakfast Steve has made him, but he wants to. Oh, how he wants to, to please him so badly. Tony twists to face Steve just as he leans his mug forward for Tony to take a sip. Their gazes connect over the mug, and he wants to please-_

Steve wrenched himself out of Tony’s distraction, dragging Tony with him by slamming his hands to the table on either side of Tony’s naked hips. His own clothed hips pressed against the edge of the table, against Tony’s ass. He hummed as the visuals dissolved like wisps of smoke in the air, and he tipped his head down to tease Tony with the tip of his tongue. He licked the metal ring against Tony’s mouth and rocked his hardening cock against Tony’s body. He let it settle between Tony's cheeks to rub against his skin with the rough denim he'd chosen to replace his uniform with. 

It was about then that Tony realized his feet were planted flat on the table, legs spread to hook around metal bars attached to the corners, and with it, he was unable to find the leverage to rock back against Steve. He strained against the bars, knees pressing tightly to the metal. Steve, in turn, pressed their foreheads together and turned his face to look at one of Tony’s knees. 

“Don’t you like it?” he wondered, resting a calloused, wide palm on Tony’s thigh. He fanned his fingers out, dug the tips in lightly to cause Tony’s skin to turn white, then scored his nails lightly up along the muscle to Tony’s knee. “So open and exposed for me. You’re not hiding anything like this, Tony. Not from me, not anymore.”

Tony jerked against all of his restraints, a harsh retort scuttled in his throat, but Steve only laughed. He leaned back, keeping his hips close so he could continue to tease Tony with the denim of his jean-covered cock. He ran his hands up and down Tony’s spread thighs, a rumble of approval in his chest. He pushed his hands back down to the vee of Tony’s pelvis, framing Tony’s cock between his hands, thumbs pressing in just below Tony’s balls. 

“Eff!” Tony jerked and shuddered, tongue shoving against the ring as he tried to say Steve’s name, the grunt of it thick and wet. 

“I know, baby,” Steve murmured, smirking. He massaged Tony’s perineum, the beginning curves of his ass cheeks, teased and stroked. He breathed in deeply, let it out on a growling groan. “You’re so flushed… Straining up and so wet for me.” 

Tony’s fingers twisted around the cuff grips, smacking his hands against the wall. Steve ignored him, ducking down to nuzzle into Tony’s cock. He licked his lips then licked from the base of Tony’s shaft to the tip, sucking lightly at the dripping slit. He made sure to avoid the carefully-tied ribbon around his balls and base. 

Tony continued to hit his hands against the wall, the only real motion left to him because of his position. He moaned, a long and unbroken sound of need. The muscles flexed in his hips, under Steve’s hands, and he gripped Tony a little tighter, warning. 

“Can you feel how hard you are anymore?” Steve wondered, “You’ve been hard for so long. I know it began to run together for me. This must feel like torture.”

He spent a long time on Tony’s cock, nuzzling and licking. Tony’s every breath became a pant, his legs trembling and tensing against the bars and Steve’s shoulders. Steve worried briefly about bruises along Tony’s knees, but the worry was swept away by a particularly needy moan leaking from Tony’s open mouth. His lips felt hot and slick from his spit and Tony’s precome, but he continued to slide them, partially open, over Tony’s shaft, then down over his balls until he’s nosing in beneath. He shifted a little, knocking a moan out of Tony, shoving his shoulders into Tony’s legs to get his mouth just behind Tony’s balls, tongue running firmly against his perineum. 

Tony shouted, and his dick twitching in vain, shaking just as fiercely as his arms and legs. He wasn’t given his release, though, prevented it by the ribbon tied around him. He sobbed once, a broken realization that no immediate relief was forthcoming. Steve was too engrossed in the tight, damp skin against his tongue to notice right away that his control was stolen once more as he pulled the ribbon free.

_He digs his heels in again. The hand in Steve's hair tugs sharply as the other tears at the bedsheets. The ribbon slips over his stomach, sliding damply across his navel._

_Steve teases his tongue lower, turning his face a little to kiss at Tony's ass cheek. It clenches under his mouth, and he hears Steve chuckle before gently nipping at the twitching muscle. The noise Tony makes sounds trapped, and Steve kisses his way back up to Tony's cock. He flattens his tongue against the base and drags it slowly up the shaft to the tip where he sucks gently._

_Steve moves his hands, and Tony shudders out a breath around his fist. In the next breath, Steve is shoving up and shrugging to let Tony's thighs drop to catch against his forearms. He bends over Tony, bending Tony with him so that his cock pushes thick and hard, promising, against Tony's ass. Then, not even biting his hand can stop Tony's desperate moan. It's ragged, panting, wet, as Steve bends him further to lean down and kiss the sound straight off his tongue. He drops one leg, but Tony dutifully brings it back up to lock his knee around Steve's hip as Steve reaches up to draw Tony's hand away further along the bed. He pins it there, finally, with his fingers lacing between Tony's._

_Tony opens up wider, tempting Steve in deeper with claiming sweeps of his tongue. All the while, Steve rocks against Tony, into him, moving them both in slow, steady rotations. His cock rubs and catches as Tony's ass, his slick head snagging at the rim of Tony's hole. It's wet with Steve's spit and lube, leaking out around Tony's thighs and the bedsheets below. He knows Steve loves making him messy, craves it viscerally._

_Tony is giving Steve a near-constant moan. His cock leaks in a pool around the head where it rubs against his own stomach with each rock of Steve's hips. Steve is paying more attention to the twist and tease of Tony's tongue than the inviting heat of Tony's body, though he doesn't stop the slick and steady slide. He bites down on Tony's lip the next time he catches against his entrance._

_Tony whines, and Steve grins against the sweeter kiss he gives him then. He pulls away just enough to look at what he's doing, all of his weight going down on his fists against the bed as he uses his toes to counterbalance the push-up then the carefully aimed release._

_Tony is good, so good for him, writhing in the sheets without displacing Steve's precarious position. Steve gives him a little more reward, finally letting the head of his cock pop into Tony on the next press down._

_In the end, it's Tony's win as his legs tighten around Steve's waist and he yanks his fist - the one still laced with Steve's- catching Steve off guard enough to upset his balance. He drops down with a grunt, the thrust following through to sheath him wholly in his lover._

_Tony groans, deep and animal, dragging the nails of his free hand down Steve's back and over his flank. His eyes are blown and his breath erratic when Steve starts peppering his face with kisses and his own answering groan._

_Tony bears down on his shoulders and shoves his hips up, fucking himself on Steve's cock in a twisting pattern that is driving Steve crazy. He keeps their faces level, watching Tony's features, his expression, the bitten dark red of his lips as he chases friction and pleasure._

_"C-creeper," Tony pants out, "fucking... Steve, please..." He reaches up to fist Steve's hair again, displacing some of the damp sweat along Steve's hairline. A drop or two land against Tony's nose and cheek, and he flinches slightly, not too far gone not to wrinkle his nose at Steve._

_Steve has to duck down and nuzzle in at Tony's throat as he laughs. "Sorry," he replies, kissing Tony's racing pulse._

_He gives Tony what he wants after, sitting up to Tony's "Nononono-come back" and hauling Tony up so that his trembling legs straddle Steve's. He takes both of Tony's hands, and Tony lets him, lacing their fingers together and dragging them behind Tony's back._

_It arches Tony back, forcing him to sink down further on Steve's cock, take him deeper. Tony bites into Steve's lip in approval, rubbing their chests together as he starts to rock up against Steve's stomach. He has very limited movement in this position, but Steve is thick enough that he's hitting all the right spots even with such minute range._

_Steve loses himself in Tony's taste again, letting Tony move as he will. He can feel the sweat sliding down both of them now, and he inhales heavily through his nose, reveling in the scent of sex between them._

_Steve gathers up Tony's hands in one of his, freeing the other to stretch out and snag the forgotten ribbon. He brings it forward, trails the damp ribbon against Tony's arm as Tony turns his head to watch._

_"I like you in my color, Steve murmurs, transfixed by the way the ribbon curves over Tony's bicep._

_"It's a good color," Tony hums, kissing at Steve's jaw as Steve flips the ribbon round and round two of his fingers._

_"Tony," Steve says, low and intent, tugging on Tony's caught hands to get him to lean back._

_Tony looks from Steve's fingers to his face and rolls his eyes fondly. "You're one kinky s-"_

Steve shoved his ribboned fingers into Tony's mouth, thrusting into Tony at the same time, his hips a sharp and snapping pace against Tony’s ass. 

"Go on, Tony," Steve encouraged roughly, teeth bared at the derailment of his plans, but he rubbed the ribbon around the o-ring before pressing down on Tony’s tongue. "It tastes like you, doesn't it?"

Tony groaned and tried to work his tongue around the ribbon, around Steve’s fingertips. Steve hooked his fingers down against Tony’s teeth, twisting a little to watch his cock pump in and out. He braced his other hand on the brick wall by Tony’s head and leaned in to kiss at Tony’s mouth, at the damp and swollen lips, his own fingers as they pulled Tony against the harness. 

“You wanted my control,” Steve breathed, sliding his mouth to Tony’s cheek. Tony groaned in answer, and Steve’s thighs began shaking the table with the force of his thrusts. Tears and sweat dropped and rolled down the curve of Tony’s cheeks, dripped down between them to disappear in the mess of their sex. 

“Next time, baby,” Steve promised, the words pushing back hot against his face, “I’m going to fuck your mouth through this o-ring. It’s going to be your lips I’m bruising instead of my thighs on this goddamn table. I know it’s what you want, you want to give in and let me take it. That’s why you can’t keep your fantasies. That’s why you turn them over to me, and we end up right back here.”

Steve watched Tony convulsively swallow, could feel his body tensing up in approaching orgasm, and he grit his own teeth in response. He rolled his shoulders then leaned back to wrench one of the table’s bars free of the planking. It came free with a cracking splint, and Tony’s freed leg slammed into Steve’s side. It would have winded a lesser man, but Steve pushed past it to free Tony’s other leg. 

More prepared this time, Tony pressed it into Steve instead of trying to take out a kidney, and then Steve was wrapping his arm around Tony’s hips and hauling him up on his cock. Tony’s shoulders dug into the brick wall now, but he looked far beyond caring, fucking himself onto Steve’s cock much like he had in his last attempt at distraction. 

Steve kept Tony balanced that way with his arm, thrust back into every twist downward and gripped his flank hard enough to bruise. “You weren’t wrong,” Steve panted, “I do like this color on you too.”

And he dropped his ribboned fingers to Tony’s ass, stroking the soft material where Tony was stretched open on his cock. Tony’s heels kicked, words inaudible but long and desperate. 

“Shh,” Steve whispered, “You’re so good for me, doing so well,” and he began to press those two fingers in alongside his cock as he gave shallow, teasing thrusts against Tony’s ass. The hooks were rattling, a constant stream of metallic noise, and Tony was a dam of choking, broken moans. His cock twitched and pulsed and reddened, so wet with precome and spit that it shone even in the dim, red light. 

By the time Steve settled his fingers inside of Tony, the ribbon was no longer visible and he resumed pounding into Tony. He dropped his head forward, bending his back to bite down around the strap lining Tony’s cheek. A few seconds later, Tony’s entire body seized up against Steve, and then he was coming, shaking apart against Steve with heaving gasps as he practically forced Steve in tighter, harder, closer, still closer with the dull curves of his heels. 

Tony’s body sucked him in, tightened around Steve until spots danced around his eyes in a white-out, He fucked into Tony once, twice, three times more before pulling his fingers free and pressing in as deep as he could to fill Tony up with his cum.

He ripped the blindfold off, wanting to see Tony’s eyes as he crested his release. Tony blinked blearily at him, eyes dazed and unfocused, red-rimmed and wet, and then they crinkled in what Steve could only assume was amusement.

_He’s the most comfortable he thinks he’s ever been in his life. The sheets are fresh, the laundry soap a faint floral scent beneath his nose. He breathes out steadily and feels the heavy warmth of Steve’s body stretch out against him. Steve’s arm settles securely and supportively across Tony’s lower back, and he presses his face against Tony’s neck. He, too, breathes out steadily, and hums low and soft._

_A breeze catches the curtains, wafting them inward towards the bed. In the close-distance, the ocean laps against the sand. Tony knows that right now the moon reflects beautifully against the water, but he wouldn’t give this spot next to Steve up for anything in the world. They have all the time in the world._

Steve woke up slowly, a low hum coming from his phone on the nightstand. He flopped a hand around to grab it and pressed the message open. 

_~Good morning, beloved.~_

Steve hid his dopey smile against his pillow and responded. 

_-Morning, Shellhead. Ready for the big day?-_

_~I’d rather be with you. Maria wants to discuss some registration bill. Come save me.~_

_-I’ll see you at lunch. Go knock ‘em dead, Director.-_

_~Love you, Winghead.~_

_-I love you, too.-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I'm going to go take a loooooong nap now.


End file.
